Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Military history/Archive 78

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William IV of the United Kingdom

William IV of the United Kingdom has been nominated for a featured article review. Articles are typically reviewed for two weeks. Please leave your comments and help us to return the article to featured quality. If concerns are not addressed during the review period, articles are moved onto the Featured Article Removal Candidates list for a further period, where editors may declare "Keep" or "Remove" the article from featured status. The instructions for the review process are here. Reviewers' concerns are here. Chwech 00:42, 27 March 2008 (UTC)

Peer review for Mahamat Nouri now open

The peer review for Mahamat Nouri is now open; all editors are invited to participate, and any input there would be appreciated! Thanks!Blnguyen (vote in the photo straw poll) 02:22, 27 March 2008 (UTC)

Peer review for Omar Khadr now open

The peer review for Omar Khadr is now open; all editors are invited to participate, and any input there would be appreciated! Thanks!Blnguyen (vote in the photo straw poll) 02:22, 27 March 2008 (UTC)

Coordinator emeritus

The coordinators have appointed Kirill Lokshin as a coordinator emeritus to reflect his on-going involvement in the project. The appointment ends concurrently with the other coordinators' term in september 2008. --ROGER DAVIES talk 11:03, 26 March 2008 (UTC)

Not to quibble over something that really doesn't matter, but emeritus does not usually signal any kind of limited appointment... Carom (talk) 13:16, 26 March 2008 (UTC)
Agreed. The other anomaly is that it's not purely honorary. Best to think of it as one of those IAR things :) --ROGER DAVIES talk
Indeed. ;-)
In any case, I'd like to thank the coordinators, and everyone else in the project, for entrusting me with this position; I'll try my best not to disappoint any expectations. Kirill 23:00, 26 March 2008 (UTC)
For the avoidance of doubt, perhaps the title should be Coordinator emeritus (sic) :)))) --ROGER DAVIES talk 09:13, 27 March 2008 (UTC)
Coordinator Associate? If that formulation helps... My 2 cents Buckshot06 (talk) 05:15, 28 March 2008 (UTC)

BAV boy

I don't know how to resolve this conflict... For BAV 485, I lifted the template from GAZ 46, only to find it did not allow certain specs; neither did the template from BTR 152, nor ZiS-151 (I don't think). Obviously, something needs to be done to resolve this. I'd suggest a broader vehicular template ("military vehicle"?), allowing a wider range of specs, is needed. Trekphiler (talk) 16:25, 26 March 2008 (UTC)

It's something that's come up recently. Military vehicles are currently included on {{Infobox Weapon}}, but that's not a particularly specialized template; and it was suggested that splitting the vehicular components from that into a {{Infobox Military Vehicle}} would be a good idea. The major issue is that nobody has actually come up with a comprehensive list of needed parameters for it. Kirill 22:58, 26 March 2008 (UTC)
Then perhaps it would be wise to start here with a list of parameters? Cromdog (talk) 23:30, 26 March 2008 (UTC)
As I compromise, I used the template & listed specs not includable (is that a word?); I suggest the new template allow all the info in both. (Possibly other, too, per the AFV template issues mentioned above (now archived), in re. M6 & T30, among others.) Trekphiler (talk) 15:35 & 15:43, 27 March 2008 (UTC)

Navigational boxes issue

After a discussion on a user's talkpage, I feel I must come here with the issue. Electrobe has been converting some instances of Template:Military navigation to use Template:Navbox and now Template:Navbox Military so as to change the colour scheme. As far as I can see, the new Template:Navbox Military has no additional function other than to have a different colour scheme.

The questions to be asked are: Do we need another military navbox? Does the existing navbox need a new colour parameter? Thoughts would be much appreciated. Woody (talk) 14:07, 28 March 2008 (UTC)

He does seem to have a history of creating subtley different versions of templates for no apparent reason, and with little discussion. David Underdown (talk) 14:21, 28 March 2008 (UTC)
{{Navbox Military}} is pretty useless, since it merely re-implements the existing {{Navbox}} without supporting any of the military template layout standardization features needed to make things work with the infoboxes.
As far as I'm concerned, the use of {{military navigation}} remains the preferred option according to our MoS-force style guide. Any changes to this need to go through the normal course of discussion here; these new templates should simply be redirected or deleted in the interests of continuing standardization. Kirill 14:51, 28 March 2008 (UTC)
As far as colors go, we're already pushing the edges of standardization by retaining a color different from the standard. If anything, we might consider changing our navbox/infobox colors to match the standard ones used by {{Navbox}}; but certainly there's no need to have different colors on a per-template basis. Kirill 14:57, 28 March 2008 (UTC)
See the TFD discussion. Woody (talk) 16:16, 28 March 2008 (UTC)

Outstanding FLC dragging on

This is a request for some more users to pop over to Wikipedia:Featured list candidates/List of Victoria Cross recipients of the Royal Navy to assess it. So far, there has been something of a dearth of reviewers and it is likely to be closed soon simply due to a lack of interest. Any input would be appreciated, thankyou. Woody (talk) 14:10, 28 March 2008 (UTC)

Help assessing needed

Once again, Category:Unassessed military history articles is bursting at the seams. Could editors with a bit of spare time please help reducing the backlog? Many thanks in advance, --ROGER DAVIES talk 15:20, 28 March 2008 (UTC)

Not really bursting at the seams, (see Category:Unassessed biography articles, currently running at over 70,000) ;)) I will have a go soon. Woody (talk) 15:26, 28 March 2008 (UTC)
By our standards, it's bursting at the seams. Anyway, a little drama never hurt no-one :) --ROGER DAVIES talk 15:36, 28 March 2008 (UTC)

Good article assessments

Hi there, a backlog has built up in the GA nominations for War and military, any help from experienced editors here to review these articles would be very much appreciated. Tim Vickers (talk) 17:31, 28 March 2008 (UTC)

I'll see if I can review some articles in the next few days. Kyriakos (talk) 20:49, 28 March 2008 (UTC)

Bowie knife needs cites.

Bowie knife needs cites. The article is tagged as within the scope of the Military history WikiProject. -- 201.37.229.117 (talk) 13:24, 29 March 2008 (UTC)

Nice to know. The best approach is the do-it-yourself approach. Wandalstouring (talk) 14:08, 29 March 2008 (UTC)
I have no interest in doing this myself. Nevertheless, it should be done. Perhaps someone interested in the subject might be interested in doing this. Have a good one. -- 201.37.229.117 (talk) 06:10, 30 March 2008 (UTC)

Peer review for Kenneth Dewar now open

The peer review for Kenneth Dewar is now open; all editors are invited to participate, and any input there would be appreciated! There are also several other recent peer review requests that could use additional input. Thanks! Kirill 22:14, 29 March 2008 (UTC)

What type of gun is this?

Ok, here's the clues; It's on HMS Cardiff (D108), probably taken around 1982 (the Falklands War). Ryan4314 (talk) 01:07, 25 March 2008 (UTC)

Do we think it's this one [1]? A "20 mm Oerlikon gun" apparently. Ryan4314 (talk) 01:12, 25 March 2008 (UTC)
I don't think it's the BMARC type; that was installed on a lot of ships after the Falklands. My thought is that it's a 40mm Bofors, based on the 'look' of the metal shape in front of the gunner. Bofors 40mm guns were I believe the most frequently installed type in the lead up to the Falklands. Buckshot06 (talk) 01:33, 25 March 2008 (UTC)
It looks like the fire control station for one of the cardiff's guns, I think. Without barrel etc it is difficult to guess further. Tried messaging the uploader? Narson (talk) 01:13, 25 March 2008 (UTC)
Addendum: Could it not just be a spotter station? Radar/Sonar screens and a pair of binocs? Narson (talk) 02:04, 25 March 2008 (UTC)
Its name is Charlene! --'''I am Asamuel''' (talk) 01:14, 25 March 2008 (UTC)
It's a director, not a Close Range.
Provides a manual tracking input into the ADAWS combat system to support Anti Surface gunnery on the Medium Range. In principle it can also be used for engaging Anti-Air, to cue in the T909 radar, but if you're working AAW in the visual then you've got things badly wrong.
ALR (talk) 14:38, 25 March 2008 (UTC)
Spot on! It is the Starboard GDP.....Gun Direction Platform with Able Seaman (Missileman) 'Spike' Hughes on watch.Griffiths911 (talk) 05:58, 3 April 2008 (UTC)

Naming conventions

User:Mrg3105 has decided to start naming every military unit in the project each with it's country disambigator, whether it has a similar sounding unit or not. Also, he's systematically changing Civil War and Revolutionary war regiments from, for example, 10th Virginia Regiment to 10th Virginia Infantry Regiment, which I believe is incorrect historically - they simply didn't have that word in their titles. Can we get some other opinions here please? I believe that, for example, 10th Missile Squadron does not need a (United States) behind it because there has always only been one 10th (S)MS, and that is what our naming conventions says currently. I do not believe there is a demonstrated need for the convention to change, and I think this needs to be discussed, rather than being re-done by only one editor. Buckshot06 (talk) 12:19, 31 March 2008 (UTC)

Check out this site [2] for names of ACW regiments.--mrg3105 (comms) ♠♥♦♣ 09:56, 2 April 2008 (UTC)
This is somewhat misrepresented. I am not changing any conventions, and I have not included the country disambiguation in every case.
  • What is the correct titling of the ACW units? When I begun, I had checked in the category, and it seemed to me that the majority stated their Arm of Service. I have also checked some online sites, of which there are plenty, and there does not seem to be a consensus. On the other hand I did notice that the more accepted way to write regimental titles is through spelled out numbers rather then enumeration.
  • How may one know if there are more then one unit in the World when the existing unit article has a generic name, i.e. 10th Missile Squadron. While User:Buckshot06 may have his beliefs, I for one do not know this with certainty. However, when User:Buckshot06 has verified that there is only one, he is welcome to move it back until such time as another nation decides to form a 10th Missile Squadron.--mrg3105 (comms) ♠♥♦♣ 12:51, 31 March 2008 (UTC)
User:Mrg demonstrated several times that he is acting disruptively and individualy in order to illustrate his own points and opinions. I wish to add to the ones mentioned by Buckshot, that he is also aiming to do the same thing with all the Soviet offensives of WWII (for example East Prussian Offensives --> East Prussian Strategic Offensive Operation), which is non-sense and would make the name vainly too complicated. --Eurocopter (talk) 13:26, 31 March 2008 (UTC)
Yes Eurocopter tigre, and I'm sure you are itching to say more about how nasty I am (was it "Russian Communist Romanian-hater last time?"). However, you don't know me, and you don't know what, or why I'm doing or thinking anything, so you should stick to the facts. If you think that East Prussian Strategic Offensive Operation is too long, I suggest you direct your complaints to the General Staff of the Armed Forces of the Russian Federation History Department, and ask them to shorten their name also while you are at it.
I asked you what you what your problem is with this title in the article talk page? Is it that it was not a strategically important, or that it was not a military operation? You have chosen not to reply. Instead you pipe-in here, where the discussion is on a completely different matter, and where my "disruptiveness" has not been either suggested, or proven.
Excuse me Mrg. ET is not the only one who has been concerned at your large-scale renamings of many Eastern Front articles to the long-form Soviet historical title. We have a perfectly adequate name for this operation, which sounds much better in English - East Prussian Offensive. We do not need to have every E Front article renamed, to X Strategic Defence / Offensive Operation, at the very least not without widespread consultation. We have some perfectly good article names already. Buckshot06 (talk) 21:40, 31 March 2008 (UTC)
PS. While you are thinking about size, consider renaming Romanian Armies in the Battle of Stalingrad to Romanian Forces in WWII, because that's coming ;o)--mrg3105 (comms) ♠♥♦♣ 13:53, 31 March 2008 (UTC)
Ok, from now on, you have to post reliable sources for any undiscussed move you make, otherwise I will revert them myself. Regarding the Romanian Armies in the Battle of Stalingrad, is this a threatening or what? I seriously suggest you to discuss any further name change... and, try to be useful for the project, not constantly disruptive. --Eurocopter (talk) 17:15, 31 March 2008 (UTC)
I don't believe unit names should be unilaterially changed by any one user without discussion and rough agreement first. Though I haven't worked much in the area, I'm aware that it can be a fairly tricky field, with differing standards by nation/era, and multiple exceptions within as well. I also don't think there's any valid reason to disambiguate a unit for which only one exists; there's absolutely nothing to confuse it with. Oberiko (talk) 13:50, 31 March 2008 (UTC)
I am not changing any conventions (repeat).--mrg3105 (comms) ♠♥♦♣ 13:53, 31 March 2008 (UTC)
If that's the case, please, as indicated also by other editors, stop adding (Country) where there is a unique unit/formation title. To take your last move, there has never ever been two formation with the name 14th (Light) Division. Thus there is no need to move the article, as you just did, to 14th (Light) Division (United Kingdom). Please, at the very least, stop moving these articles while the discussion is in progress. Regards Buckshot06 (talk) 21:12, 31 March 2008 (UTC)
Mrg, your enthusiasm and commitment to the project is appreciated, but this has been explained and discussed at British Divisions in World War II . Only generic titles should be disambiguated with country suffixes, not uniquely named units. And even then, it shouldn't be a pre-emptive disambiguation (e.g. the numerous regiments of foot). We must accurately represent the verifiable. If the verifiable states indisputably that the 14th was titled the 14th (Light) Division and there is no similarly titled unit, then that is where the article should exist. SoLando (Talk) 22:27, 31 March 2008 (UTC)
Are you suggesting that United Kingdom has a monopoly on Light Divisions?--mrg3105 (comms) ♠♥♦♣ 00:09, 1 April 2008 (UTC)
No, but I suspect the 14th (Light) Division has a monopoly on that exact formulation ;-). We don't pre-emptively disambiguate an article on the assumption that another similarly named unit may exist when a title isn't nondescript (in contrast to 1st Division). SoLando (Talk) 09:26, 1 April 2008 (UTC)
Any number of nations have had "Light" divisions, including in Europe. Since I don't expect every reader of Wikipedia to have the intimate knowledge of all militaries of all time as some editors do, I perceive that a degree of disambiguation is required. In any case, I interpreted your request to stop moving to be confined to "uniquely named units". The Royal Hungarian Army had some twenty Light divisions alone.
I have not been summarily renaming articles on Eastern Front operations. All suggestions for renaming have been posted to talk pages first for discussion. What I don't understand is why the 1950s and 60s "Battle of..." usage for Soviet military operations that were used in the same vein as "Soviets", "Russians" and "Reds" (not acceptable in Wikipedia) are more preferable to those actually found in the records of the Soviet General Staff? However, given there is no article for the Soviet General Staff, this can't even be discussed in its talk page, so maybe the General Staff Academy talk page?
Given that more than one editor has a concern over the renaming of battle/operations articles, this page appears to be a good place to have a general, wide-ranging discussion on the issue, which will build consensus and allow a widely agreed standard to be followed in future. Buckshot06 (talk) 23:45, 31 March 2008 (UTC)
In actual fact I had used the spreadsheet compiled by the authors you quote all the time, Crofoot and Glantz, replacing only Front with Strategic (where there are multiple Fronts involved) and omitting Army where there are multiple Armies involved. This is largely because the full Russian translation, as mentioned in one of the discussions, is Frontal and Armial, neither of which is exactly good English. In any case, how widespread would you like the consultation to be? The vast majority of the operations were not even mentioned in the few articles that did exist before I had added them, and they had been around for years.--mrg3105 (comms) ♠♥♦♣ 23:17, 31 March 2008 (UTC)
Crofoot and Glantz both explicitly focus on the Soviet point of view, and, rightly therefore, use Soviet nomenclature. Here, unhappily or not, we're not constructing The Great Soviet and Russian Online Encyclopaedia, and we're supposed to balance points of view. That means taking account of German and other views on what articles should be named, not unilaterally moving articles based on talk pages that are little visited. WP prefers having a debate, building consensus, and then going from there. Buckshot06 (talk) 23:45, 31 March 2008 (UTC)
On the ludicrous use of sources. What is wrong with the sentence "Army Group North drove through Novgorod"? Yes, I had seen something like this, and it defies belief that anyone would write this in a reference work, and no one had edited it. This is how "Battles of..." come about; unqualified people writing about events they did not understand, using sources they did not verify; 19th century journalism from the simplifications of Napoleonic bulletins of the Grand Army.

What is the image one conjures up on reading that? 500,000 troops leisurely driving down Novgorod's main street!

Consider the Battle of Brody (I am trying to locate its official name). The name in English came from an off the cuff remark in a German post-war memoir by a low-ranking officer who eventually as a result of his participation in the combat ended up in the town of Brody. If anyone had looked at the map of Ukraine, they would see the "battle" being fought over an area of several hundred square kilometres! One of the reasons Soviet units failed in the counter-attack, is because of the difficulties they encountered coordinating their widely spaced formations (involving five Corps)! At least three of the Soviet Corps, and at least one of the German Corps participating had never been anywhere near Brody! Imagine a military operation taking place over the entire area of North East England and calling it the Battle ofDurham, or an amphibious operation to capture Rhode Island a Battle ofProvidence. Use sources by all means, but please do be discriminate on their quality and validity. The ability to add a source, and quote from it, does not mean it deserves to be added or quoted!--mrg3105 (comms) ♠♥♦♣ 00:02, 1 April 2008 (UTC)

Naming of battle/operations articles

Given that more than one editor has a concern over the renaming of battle/operations articles, this page appears to be a good place to have a general, wide-ranging discussion on the issue, which will build consensus and allow a widely agreed standard to be followed in future. Buckshot06 (talk) 23:45, 31 March 2008 (UTC)

In actual fact I had used the spreadsheet compiled by the authors you quote all the time, Crofoot and Glantz, replacing only Front with Strategic (where there are multiple Fronts involved) and omitting Army where there are multiple Armies involved. This is largely because the full Russian translation, as mentioned in one of the discussions, is Frontal and Armial, neither of which is exactly good English. In any case, how widespread would you like the consultation to be? The vast majority of the operations were not even mentioned in the few articles that did exist before I had added them, and they had been around for years.--mrg3105 (comms) ♠♥♦♣ 23:17, 31 March 2008 (UTC)
Crofoot and Glantz both explicitly focus on the Soviet point of view, and, rightly therefore, use Soviet nomenclature. Here, unhappily or not, we're not constructing The Great Soviet and Russian Online Encyclopaedia, and we're supposed to balance points of view. That means taking account of German and other views on what articles should be named, not unilaterally moving articles based on talk pages that are little visited. WP prefers having a debate, building consensus, and then going from there. Buckshot06 (talk) 23:45, 31 March 2008 (UTC)
There are several suggestions here made by Buckshot06:
  • That I use authors who are biased towards use of Soviet sources
No, That is not what I said. 'Crofoot and and Glantz both explicitly focus on the Soviet point of view, and, rightly therefore, use Soviet nomenclature'. Not biased; but they're focusing on the (less explored up to the 60s) Soviet materials & viewpoint on the war. Do not twist what I am saying. Buckshot06 (talk) 04:29, 1 April 2008 (UTC)
Glantz for one is using records from both sides extensively. However I apologise if I misunderstood what you meant.
  • That Soviet sources are themselves unreliable
No, that is incorrect also. I said that both sides' ideas over what appropriate naming should be considered. Buckshot06 (talk) 04:29, 1 April 2008 (UTC)
It is impossible to consider both sides, since they really did not have a conference over the naming conventions as we are doing.
I was not suggesting that at any time there was any conference or any other sort of agreement etc - not at all. What I said was we have to consider both sides - using all information available, whatever documentation, practice, or convention whatever - not just Soviet for Soviet offensives, or German for German offensives. (Incidentally Mrg I've got a really tangled translation at Talk:Belomorsky Military District in which Feskov et al 2004, through machine translation, is really unclear - could use your help.) Buckshot06 (talk) 05:15, 1 April 2008 (UTC)

German convention, outside of large operations with code names, was to use formation/unit operational name + mission objective + date. This is how "Battle of Kiev" was created, because the actual name was (in translation) Army Group Centre advance on Kiev August operations. Seriously, this is what is says on operational orders. For units it would (example) 202nd Infantry division advance on Kramatorsk 12 September 1941, which no doubt would become Battle of Kramatorsk if anyone had chosen to write about it in English. A shorthand also existed like the Army operations north of Kiev in September (as opposed to the Luftwaffe), which included all Army units under the same commander. Sometimes this is seen as (example) Kampfgruppe Manteuffel operations.... These styles are completely intermixed in German-derived accounts, so it is often hard to say what the writer is talking about because invariably a published work is a reduction of a larger volume of research. Moreover as you understand operations on both sides overlapped in timing, form and objectives.

This is why I suggest that articles be named after the side with the initiative to initiate the event, and add in the content that the other side reacted with .....
I note this is not addressing the proposal "to have a general, wide-ranging discussion on" "over the renaming of battle/operations articles", but rather focuses on the very specific case, and in fact on two specific sources.
I'm all for the progressive elaboration in WP. So, from specific, to general issues.
Why do these two authors (Erickson also extensively used by Buckshot06 has been left out) make extensive use of Soviet sources? By and large the Soviet sources have been found to be correct on deeper analysis since the archival documents have been opened to independent researchers. Where they were faulted before, was in the degree of political influence that was inserted into military history publications with suggestions that the Party and Stalin were responsible for "formation X executing operation Y to achieve mission goal Z". As it happens, with one change of the word same can be said about claims made by the Germans...before the end of the war. Thereafter all failures were blamed on the NAZI Party and Hitler, including down to tactical level! Moreover, much of the documentation of the Eastern Front operations was not available to the few German post-war writers, and their works were written from memory, and within the environment of early-Cold War, subject to their interpretation based on their POV from their role and position in a given event. i.e. not particularly objective. For this reason professional specialists in the field of German-Soviet conflict during the Second World War prefer to deal with original documents, and most of these happen to be in former Soviet, and now Russian Federation military Archives.
Since no one has claimed that I politicise the article editing in the way Soviet sources did, I will not address this issue. The parts I use from the online Great Soviet Encyclopaedia in no way restricts others to contribute to produce "balanced points of view". To whit...
I had proposed that battle/operations articles should be named according to what the initiator of the subject of the article called it. There is an essay in the Project essays page on it (no discussion has taken place there either). For a start it is generally the more correct name. It is also non-English-centric. It avoids the claims of "victors write the history" or other biases. The only issue is that the subject title has to readable by English speakers, and therefore has to be in English.
This suggestion presents a number of problems, mostly with source use. I will not speak of the whole of Military History Project scope, but the history of Eastern Front in English has been dealt with predominantly from the German point of view for most of the Cold War either due to the lack of knowledge of Russian by the writers, or mostly due to inaccessibility of the archives to researchers. If there is one thing true about history research is that it is dynamic. What people knew about the Vietnam War in the 1970s, the first 'television war' with virtually unrestricted access by the media, pails into insignificance with what is known about it now. Why should the Eastern Front, or the whole of the Second World War be different? I do not discard older sources entirely, but I ask that Wikipedia editors use discretion when using them, and recognise their strengths and their weaknesses. This is one of the primary duties of an editor.
Late last year I wrote to Kirill, and suggested an introduction of a greater vocabulary range in describing conflicts ranging from war to combat. I did this after doing some research which included a lecturer in military history in France, and a serving officer in the Bundeswehr. Although there are some problems of correlation across languages, in general the militaries of the World do distinguish scales and scopes of the activities of their forces. Some "Battle of..." events are skirmishes, engagements, or campaigns! Unsurprisingly a "battle" is usually understood to be a large tactical confrontation between forces no larger then a Corps. This is not a hard and fast rule of course. While this may satisfy the description of the Battle of Waterloo, the Battle of Leipzig was a focal point for campaigns of three Allied Armies. Again, editorial discretion is needed, as well as a greater-then-superficial knowledge of the subject.
On the subject of using the most common English name for the article, I can only say that the problem is not mine! If English language authors choose to lump several distinct operations into one volume and call it Battle of Kursk, or worse describe two soviet Front-level counter-offensives as part of a work called Operation Citadel (aha!), then you can discuss that with the editor of that author's book. Germans called it Zitadelle, and they ought to know because they started it. In those Soviet sources that do not refer to the actual operational names, the phrase is Kursk Arc (Курская Дуга) which some industrious English language editors in some sources turned into Kursk Bulge (in Russian выпухлость), no doubt to make it more palatable to the English reader more familiar with the Battle of the Bulge because the victors in this case won the war and wrote the history of "Unternehmen Wacht am Rhein" although "It was officially named the Battle of the Ardennes by the U.S. Army". So, the editor of some 50s-60s book gets to decide what the operation is called, and not the participants! That this was no "battle" testifies to the scale in Germans using four Field Armies...equivalent to any one of the three Army Groups used in Barbarossa. And yet there is no Battle of Ukraine, Battle of Belorussia or Battle of the Baltic States because Germans considered such easy victories of the first few weeks unworthy of recording, and so they never made it into the English language. Just so readers may understand why the US Army chose the name Ardennes, read there the description of it being "a region of extensive forests and rolling hill country, primarily in Belgium and Luxembourg, but stretching into France...". It was a massive, strategically important region that decided the Campaign of 1940! Maybe Americans are more subtle at the way they wanted to remember the effort made by the troops on the defensive there during the German strategic offensive operation, but that is their choice, and Soviet military chose to emphasise the point by including "strategic" in the operation names. They include "operation" to emphasise the planned nature of the offensive execution as opposed to the painfully unplanned defensive withdrawals experienced in 1941-42. Go figure...
In any case, if a name can be referenced to a reliable source, and if the source is more reliable then other sources, any name readable in English, except code names, can be used so as as I'm concerned.--mrg3105 (comms) ♠♥♦♣ 03:59, 1 April 2008 (UTC)

Edit warring on numbers in some old wars

There seems to be some edit warring going on on some articles, where numbers of casualties etc. get changed. First an editor did that without references, now references get added. The editor who changes the numbers did not get warned, nor was discussed with this editor. I am confused whether his number changes are correct, or that one (or both?) of the sources are incorrect. Can I ask people here to take up the discussion with user:Irtehprwn (the number changing editor), user:83.250.40.152 (could be his IP), and user:Shipseggsbasket (who changes numbers back), and to check what needs to be done to the articles? Thanks. --Dirk Beetstra T C 15:22, 31 March 2008 (UTC)

For that matter, there is an edit war, over which there has been one 31-hour block for 3RR, in the (cursed) infobox for Iran-Iraq War. The numbers in question are mostly order of battle, but, adding to the confusion, one of the two alternating version contains a US flag and the other does not.
I've tried to suggest that the number of tanks in the infobox is less important than the number that each side could keep operational, and how effectively they were used, but that seemed lost in the noise. Howard C. Berkowitz (talk) 16:08, 31 March 2008 (UTC)
Not sure if this pertains to these editors .. --Dirk Beetstra T C 16:10, 31 March 2008 (UTC)
Just remove all numbers which are added without a citation--mrg3105 (comms) ♠♥♦♣ 23:19, 31 March 2008 (UTC)
Sure, the thing is, the editor also adds numbers with references (now). Could someone please have a look whether these numbers/references are more reliable than the numbers/references that were there? Thanks. --Dirk Beetstra T C 08:50, 1 April 2008 (UTC)

The edit warring is continuing; the sources we are talking about are:

There may be more, but these are three examples. As the involved editors still refuse to discuss, I'd like some specialist to have a look. Thanks. --Dirk Beetstra T C 13:06, 2 April 2008 (UTC)

Stub creation

How well contextualised a Stub article need to be so it does not get deleted? What are the minimum requirements?--mrg3105 (comms) ♠♥♦♣ 05:13, 1 April 2008 (UTC)

According to WP:STUB "The key is to provide adequate context — articles with little or no context usually end up being speedily deleted." I take this to mean that if you explain what the topic is and assert some notability the stub is OK (eg, 'The 1045st Regiment was a Tongan transport Regiment of World War II. It was formed in 1944 and disbanded in 1945.' is a viable article as far as I'm concerned). I recently knocked back a request to speedy delete an article on a USAF squadron which consisted of an incomplete sentance of text and a couple of references as the unit seems to have existed and it will be possible to expand the article. I'd be happy to look into any articles you think have been wrongfully speedy deleted. --Nick Dowling (talk) 07:46, 1 April 2008 (UTC)
One of my other disagreements with Buckshot06 is that he has these huge lists of Soviet formations. Some table entries are probably enough for stubs, and I suggested he convert then into articles if they have two sentences or more since he can easily reference them, and that is enough as far as I'm concerned. His fear is that they fill be flagged for SD if they are too short, but I have seen, and shown to him articles that are literally one sentence long, and lacking any references, or even wiki-links!--mrg3105 (comms) ♠♥♦♣ 08:20, 1 April 2008 (UTC)
Quick clarification. User:W. B. Wilson did virtually all the hard work to create Divisions of the Soviet Union 1917-1945 - wasn't really me. The article you showed me (40th Royal Tank Regiment, I think, it was), I would merge, rather than create a new article from. Buckshot06 (talk) 08:39, 1 April 2008 (UTC)
Well, should I ask Mr Wilson to convert some of the entries to articles?--mrg3105 (comms) ♠♥♦♣ 08:46, 1 April 2008 (UTC)
Why is it necessary to change the page at all? A two sentance article may be OK for wikirules, but I would rather have a couple of meaty paragraphs etc with good references. If creating divisional articles is your highest priority, why don't you gather information, create the new article, and then reduce the list entry to one line like you did with the 80th Rifle Division? Unlike armies with a few divisions, hundred-division plus armies like the Wehrmacht etc need central reference points - and there is a page for Wehrmacht divisions of World War II, a page for Divisions of the United States Army etc.. Furthermore, why is it so vital that this page, which collects all this information in one page unlike anywhere else, be broken up? Buckshot06 (talk) 09:13, 1 April 2008 (UTC)
Because I don't specifically look for data on rifle divisions right now, but occasionally come across it, or start reading and get taken in. I'd like to be able to go to an article and add information rather then scroll down a huge list every time. I find it very editor-unfriendly as a feature--mrg3105 (comms) ♠♥♦♣ 09:49, 1 April 2008 (UTC)
I'm not sure what the specific item of concern here is, but I personally don't see any problem with having both a list with a sentance or two on each division and short 1-2 sentance stubs on the divisions. Divisions are automatically notable and sooner or later someone will come along and expand the articles if they're created. If you make an assertion of notability and provide a reference they're not eligable for speedy deletion under the fairly restrictive criteria for speedy deletion and would need to go to an AfD, which would almost inevitably result in someone expanding the article enough for it to be saved. That said, I don't think that it's at all good practice to create very short articles and you should always take the time to write as much as you can at the time you create an article. This is especially the case when there's a comphrehensive list. Some subjects will only ever warrant a paragraph or two, however: for instance, I doubt that No. 60 Squadron RAAF will ever be expanded much! --Nick Dowling (talk) 09:37, 1 April 2008 (UTC)
Ah, but Nick, they were glorious 3 months ;o)--mrg3105 (comms) ♠♥♦♣ 09:49, 1 April 2008 (UTC)
Yeah, Wagga Wagga has never been safer from Japanese air attack than it was in early 1942. --Nick Dowling (talk) 10:38, 1 April 2008 (UTC)
I think focusing entirely on deletion isn't a particularly useful approach here; the better question—particularly for topics which fall into natural series—is "how much material is needed before a separate article is better than a list entry?".
There's a certain tendency to confuse lists and tables; while lists can certainly be formatted as tables, this is not the only option. I see nothing wrong, for example, with something of this form:
List of X divisions in World War II
1st Division
Full text goes here.
2nd Division
Full text goes here.
3rd Division
For more details on this topic, see 3rd Division.
Summary text goes here.
4th Division
Full text goes here.
Lists of this form—which alternate between potential stubs that are entirely absorbed into the list, and longer articles only referenced in it—are, in my opinion, a good way to balance the desire to provide maximal information to the reader with the need to avoid creating vast numbers of un-expandable stubs. Kirill 15:15, 1 April 2008 (UTC)
This is exactly the approach I've been taking with Infantry divisions of the Soviet Union 1917–1957, except that once the divisions have their own article, I've been linking through the title. W.B. Wilson has done a commendable summary text for each formation, and in the cases I've found enough info to expand it, I create the article - linking through the title. Buckshot06 (talk) 22:53, 1 April 2008 (UTC)
I'm moving my reply to the above article talk page.--mrg3105 (comms) ♠♥♦♣ 00:32, 2 April 2008 (UTC)
I agree with Kirill's approach. --Nick Dowling (talk) 09:36, 2 April 2008 (UTC)

Former/ notable member sections

Many articles on military units seem to have interminable lists of former members, what's the general view on how these should be made up? Brought to mind as I've just noticed the size of the list on the Special Air Service article.

Personally if an individual has no article in the repository they probably shouldn't be listed. There are some anomalies, each of the members of the Bravo Two Zero patrol is listed, along with the founders of the Regiment, a few miscellaneous authors etc.

Grateful for some views, my inclination is to cull the majority though.

ALR (talk) 10:23, 2 April 2008 (UTC)

What do you reckon to No. 233 Squadron RAF#Notable pilots (although I never did like the section title, because the majority aren't really notable in their own right in Wikipedia terms). This article otherwise had very little about the people associated with the squadron, so I felt this added a little more human interest. In this case though it's a well-defined list, all those I could find via the London Gazette who had been decorated for actions with the squadron in WWII - with a bit more work I suppose some of the decorations could probably be tied to specific incidents already mentioned in the unit history. However, if it's just a list of every Tom, Dick and Harry who's ever spent some time with the unit, then that's probably better dealt with via categories, which could be added to a "See also" listing. David Underdown (talk) 11:06, 2 April 2008 (UTC)
I am with David on this one. His example is a good example of how to do it. Source it and prosify it, explaining why these men are notable. Listing every Tom, Dick and Harry is worthless and I agree it should be culled, especially the SAS article. Woody (talk) 13:58, 2 April 2008 (UTC)
Seems fair enough to me, it puts some substance around the topic and to an extent puts a bit of colour to it. That said it would be very easy for it to get OTT. Five or so is probably as many as is reasonable, beyond that it starts getting silly.
ALR (talk) 15:05, 2 April 2008 (UTC)
Yep, everything is within reason. If we start having half the page listing all the soldiers who have written memoirs, it becomes a bit silly. Woody (talk) 15:09, 2 April 2008 (UTC)
Agree with the above editors. Lists do have encyclopedic application when properly sourced and contextualised. There were numerous Category:X Regiment officers created in the close of 2007. Why not expand their scope (other ranks, etc) and create corresponding categories for other units when warranted? They can be adequate substitutes for those lists of "notable members" that aren't considered to be beneficial to to the quality of an article. Hmm, this might be a repetition of the above discussion ;-). SoLando (Talk) 16:21, 2 April 2008 (UTC)

What ships are these?

File:Bristol Group.JPG

Ok, you all know the rules now, this is a pic of the "Bristol Group" on the way to the Falklands in May 82. There's a list of the ships on the groups article. The pic was taken by the author from his ship Cardiff, so the tanker either has to be the Bayleaf or the Olna, and the ships being replenished must be one of the two Type 21s or one of the three Type 12Is (or it could be the Type 82 "Bristol"). Ryan4314 (talk) 11:09, 2 April 2008 (UTC)

Just found out from here, apparently RFA Fort Grange might've been in the group too. Ryan4314 (talk) 12:53, 2 April 2008 (UTC)
Pretty sure the Auxiliary is Olna, she had a quite distinctive stern aspect, definitely not the Grange and the Leafs didn't have quite as much bulk above the waist.
The two receiving vessels are T21s, the tops of the funnels are raked whereas Leanders had horizontal funnel tops.
ALR (talk) 13:41, 2 April 2008 (UTC)
I agree the one on the left is a T21, but to me, the one on the left, with a obvious hanger door, is a Leander. Buckshot06 (talk) 23:35, 2 April 2008 (UTC)

A-Class review for 20th Engineer Brigade (United States) now open

The A-Class review for 20th Engineer Brigade (United States) is now open; all editors are invited to participate, and any input there would be appreciated! Thanks! Kirill 19:10, 2 April 2008 (UTC)

A-Class review for 173rd Airborne Brigade Combat Team (United States) now open

The A-Class review for 173rd Airborne Brigade Combat Team (United States) is now open; all editors are invited to participate, and any input there would be appreciated! Thanks! Kirill 19:10, 2 April 2008 (UTC)

Lists of veterans nominated for deletion

The following lists of veterans have been proposed for deletion:

Lists of veterans of wars/battles/ships/whatever are normally deleted in AfDs as being indiscriminate lists of information and/or duplicates of the relevant categories, and these lists don't seem to be any exception, but they sometimes survive after editing and sourcing. --Nick Dowling (talk) 00:23, 30 March 2008 (UTC)

They seem pretty redundant to the corresponding categories in their current form, and are woefully incomplete, besides.
Did we even come up with a good approach for how to deal with such category-redundant lists? (And, if not, should we?) I remember the matter has come up before with all the "list of X battles"-type articles. Kirill 17:08, 30 March 2008 (UTC)
I have to say I agree that they shouldn't be. I mean, we have catagories for this kind of thing, List of <Random thing that people might have in common> articles only rarely serve any real purpose. Narson (talk) 17:24, 30 March 2008 (UTC)
Apparently AFD is now in favour of incomplete lists. I nominated List of New Zealand military people and found that an extremely broad criteria for inclusion, a very weak list and redundancy to a category are not valid deletion reasons in the views of the !voters. I've got to say I'm confused now. Leithp 13:56, 3 April 2008 (UTC)

First crusade

This a current FA but it has a distinct lack of references. Only 14 in fact. I stumbled across the article and just thought I should bring it to your attention so improvements can be made before it is spotted and goes through FAR. I have no knowledge of the subject itself and thought I could leave it to people who know more about the subject and also because I have not got the required time to make these improvements. Thanks. 02blythed (talk) 15:48, 3 April 2008 (UTC)

A-Class review for USS Orizaba (ID-1536) now open

The A-Class review for USS Orizaba (ID-1536) is now open; all editors are invited to participate, and any input there would be appreciated! Thanks! Woody (talk) 20:46, 3 April 2008 (UTC)

Peer review for USS Comfort (AH-3) now open

The peer review for USS Comfort (AH-3) is now open; all editors are invited to participate, and any input there would be appreciated! Thanks!Blnguyen (bananabucket) 00:03, 4 April 2008 (UTC)

Peer review for Battle of the Kalka River now open

The peer review for Battle of the Kalka River is now open; all editors are invited to participate, and any input there would be appreciated! Thanks! Kyriakos (talk) 00:02, 4 April 2008 (UTC)

A-Class review for Connecticut Wing Civil Air Patrol now open

The A-Class review for Connecticut Wing Civil Air Patrol is now open; all editors are invited to participate, and any input there would be appreciated! Thanks! Woody (talk) 00:10, 4 April 2008 (UTC)

Image clean-up

Does anyone know how to remove photocopy shadow form images? The item in question is --mrg3105 (comms) ♠♥♦♣ 04:56, 2 April 2008 (UTC)

Try Wikipedia:WikiProject Military history/Logistics#Requests for clean up and repair. Woody (talk) 10:11, 2 April 2008 (UTC)
Done, cleaned it up. Woody (talk) 13:10, 4 April 2008 (UTC)

Major General Douglas Alexander Graham

Folks, I think the creator of the above article may need some help from the Project. Thanks.  – ukexpat (talk) 15:38, 2 April 2008 (UTC)

 Done Woody (talk) 16:27, 2 April 2008 (UTC)
Wow that was quick -- nice work! – ukexpat (talk) 16:39, 2 April 2008 (UTC)
We aim to please... ;) Done pretty much all I can without a bit more research. He was an interesting character. Woody (talk) 17:25, 2 April 2008 (UTC)
I've expanded a little more, is there something there we could use a DYK hook? The article is still eligible timewise. David Underdown (talk) 17:01, 3 April 2008 (UTC)
After your suggestion, I put one in at Template talk:Did you know#Articles created/expanded on April 2 (the bottom one). Woody (talk) 12:43, 4 April 2008 (UTC)

Requests for copyediting

There are about half a dozen articles awaiting copy-editing here. If anyone has some spare time and could help, that would be appreciated. --ROGER DAVIES talk 11:52, 3 April 2008 (UTC)

I've just done an edit of the Pakistan Air Force Academy. Mikeo1938 (talk) 09:42, 4 April 2008 (UTC)
Good work, Mike. That deserves the Chevrons! (Duly done.) --ROGER DAVIES talk 05:38, 5 April 2008 (UTC)

Current list of articles needing a copy-edit includes:

  1. Cleomenean War
  2. USS Texas (BB-35)
  3. Armia Krajowa
  4. John McCain
  5. Battle of the Kalka River
  6. HMS Cardiff (D108)
--ROGER DAVIES talk 05:38, 5 April 2008 (UTC)

InfoBox

Do anybody have infobox for a Field Marshall article? I want to add it to Sam Manekshaw‎'s Article. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Suyogaerospace (talk • contribs) 11:54, 4 April 2008 (UTC)

Yes, {{Infobox Military Person}}. Carom (talk) 12:16, 4 April 2008 (UTC)

Categories nominated for deletion

Category:Footballers who served in the British Army (edit | talk | history | links | watch | logs)
Category:Footballers who served in the RAF (edit | talk | history | links | watch | logs)

These above articles have been nominated for deletion. Does anybody here have any opinion on subject Djln --Djln (talk) 22:39, 4 April 2008 (UTC)

New category suggestion

Suggest creation of [[Category:Military raids]]. There are certainly enough of them in history--mrg3105 (comms) ♠♥♦♣ 02:24, 5 April 2008 (UTC)

Spam notice?!

I get a spam notice in Talk:Operation Bagration when trying to update/insert project templates. The spam notice says - The following link has triggered our spam protection filter: http://hubpages.com, however, I can't see the link in the page! Can anyone help on this?--mrg3105 (comms) ♠♥♦♣ 23:59, 4 April 2008 (UTC)

Done, depending on which browser you use, you can use CTRL F to activate the find feature and then search for the offending text. Woody (talk) 11:53, 5 April 2008 (UTC)
Hmm, I looked, but obviously not keenly enough. Thank you for that.--mrg3105 (comms) ♠♥♦♣ 12:00, 5 April 2008 (UTC)

Prod placed on List of naval commanders

List of naval commanders has been prodded. FYI --Brad (talk) 23:17, 5 April 2008 (UTC)

Requested articles

I can't find anywhere on your project for requests, these are needed:

Chris (クリス • フィッチ) (talk) 00:54, 30 March 2008 (UTC)

Those should probably go into the open task list in the Southeast Asian task force. Kirill 17:06, 30 March 2008 (UTC)
And this one? Jack G. "Tex" Wheelis Chris (クリス • フィッチ) (talk) 05:11, 7 April 2008 (UTC)
For the Sittang River, see Japanese capture of Burma#The Sittang Bridge. It is significant to merit it's own article, though. Leithp 06:37, 7 April 2008 (UTC)

Tiny bit of help needed: technical term

Hi. I hope someone familiar with historical/French army can give me a hand here. At User:Oreo Priest/Bombardment of Brussels#The bombardment I've translated the title "maître d’artillerie", from fr:Bombardement de Bruxelles de 1695 as "master of artillery". Hopefully someone can either OK this or correct it. Thanks. -Oreo Priest talk 19:10, 6 April 2008 (UTC)

Not familiar with the title, but your French sounds right. (Mine's not great, tho...) Trekphiler (talk) 22:22, 6 April 2008 (UTC)
Matches what I'd translate it as. Likely the Master incharge of the artillery train as well as the making of siege works and gunpowder and what not. Narson (talk) 00:18, 7 April 2008 (UTC)

Doctrinaire

(copied from here) I know this is true, but I can't source it, & it's created some controversy here: carriers as fleet scouts being less valuable/more expendable than BBs, per Mahanian doctrine. If somebody's got a good source, can you put it in the fn on the article page? (If it hasn't been removed again...) Thanx. Trekphiler (talk) 00:02, 7 April 2008 (UTC)

A-Class review for Battle of Bonchurch now open

The A-Class review for Battle of Bonchurch is now open; all editors are invited to participate, and any input there would be appreciated! Thanks! Kirill 14:59, 7 April 2008 (UTC)

Requested article

Hi: could you guys write an article on the idea of the strategic barrage? Googling and looking through Amazon, it seems to be a real term in military history, and still used, eg "The Strategic Barrage". --24.184.131.16 (talk) 20:40, 7 April 2008 (UTC)

We already have a main article on (Barrages. Perhaps you'd like to work on expanding it? --ROGER DAVIES talk 04:53, 8 April 2008 (UTC)

Bedford's administrator candidacy

A member of the project, Bedford, is currently a candidate to receive access to administrative tools. Project members who have worked with the candidate and have an opinion of Bedford's fitness to receive these tools are cordially invited to comment. --ROGER DAVIES talk 04:50, 8 April 2008 (UTC)

A-Class review for Early thermal weapons now open

The A-Class review for Early thermal weapons is now open; all editors are invited to participate, and any input there would be appreciated! Thanks! Kirill 11:07, 8 April 2008 (UTC)

Peer review for James Graham (soldier) now open

The peer review for James Graham (soldier) is now open; all editors are invited to participate, and any input there would be appreciated! Thanks! Kirill 14:47, 9 April 2008 (UTC)

Converting captain to a dab page?

I've opened a discussion on the Captain article's talk page about converting that article to a dab page. Since the it's tagged as a MILHIST page, I thought I'd mention it here. Cheers. HausTalk 17:06, 9 April 2008 (UTC)

Admirals' shoulderboards - Commonwealth Navies

Some time in the last 20 years (maybe 5 or 10), the Australian and British Navies changed the shoulder boards of Rear Admiral, Vice Admiral and Admiral from containing 1, 2 and 3 stars to containing 2, 3 and 4 stars. (Refer http://www.royalnavy.mod.uk/server/show/ConWebDoc.6020/changeNav/3533 and http://www.navy.gov.au/general/ranks.html) Can anyone tell me when this happened? If you can point me to some references, that would be useful too. Thanks in advance, Pdfpdf (talk) 12:34, 15 March 2008 (UTC)

I tried to find the current rank insignia on the RN's official site with no success. However our WP page at Royal Navy officer rank insignia appears to show the old system is still in use for the RN - not sure whether it's up to date or not. Also, my copy of Jane's Fighting Ships 99-00 shows RN sleeve insignia, apparently with the old system as well - 3 bands for a Vice Admiral. Nick Dowling has a more up to date copy of JFS, but that won't solve your collar insignia issue. I think my point is that you might be wise to double-check whether the RN has changed, whatever the RAN has done. (Just checked the RNZN official site, and it retains the old British system for it's single Admiral of the Fleet, the Duke of Edinburgh.) Regards Buckshot06 (talk) 02:16, 16 March 2008 (UTC)

I'm referring to shoulder-boards, not sleeve or collar insignia. The sleeve insignia remains unchanged; it's the shoulder boards that have changed. (I don't think Commonwealth Navies have collar insignia.)
I tried to find the current rank insignia on the RN's official site with no success. - Pardon? Isn't that what's at http://www.royalnavy.mod.uk/server/show/ConWebDoc.6020/changeNav/3533? Or does the RN have some other official site?
(As for the RNZN, they have a different shoulder board format to both Aus and UK!) Cheers, Pdfpdf (talk) 07:57, 16 March 2008 (UTC)

Excuse my fumbling - of course you're right. Quite surprised to the RN of all people doing this. Buckshot06 (talk) 10:24, 16 March 2008 (UTC)
If you badly want to know, you can send an email to Gieves and Hawkes, the naval officers' tailors in Savile Row, London. (They made Nelson's uniforms and still provide them for the royal family.) They will know and be able to tell you which warrant, if any, is applicable. --ROGER DAVIES talk 08:03, 16 March 2008 (UTC)
I think it was when Commodore was made a substantive rank, some time in the late 90s I think? Commodore is the One star rank, hence altering the boards.
ALR (talk) 12:26, 16 March 2008 (UTC)
The late 90s is consistent with my expectations, but if that's the reason, why doesn't the Commodore have a "shoulder board" with a star on it? (Also, are those who are adamant that the RN doesn't have "star" ranks correct?) Pdfpdf (talk) 12:49, 16 March 2008 (UTC)
As I recall Cdres do have starred shoulder boards, but I'm groping around in memory to remember how they look.
In the officer corps most jobs get talked about using their grade equivalence; SO3, SO2 SO1 etc and at the flag level jobs there are references to 1*, 2* etc at the flag level; mainly because of working in a joint environment. So whilst the RN may not formally have Star ranks, the grades are.
It's difficult to say for sure, the real armed forces tend not to resemble the books too closely ;)
ALR (talk) 13:02, 16 March 2008 (UTC)
What you say is definitely the case for the RAN, but I don't know about the RN. (i.e. http://www.navy.gov.au/general/ranks.html shows a shoulderboard with 1*, but http://www.royalnavy.mod.uk/server/show/ConWebDoc.6020/changeNav/3533 doesn't.)
But as you say, It's difficult to say for sure. Even if I can find something written, the real armed forces tend not to resemble the books too closely! Never-the-less, I would like to find something written explaining why the RN, RAN, or any other Commonwealth Navy, went from 1, 2 & 3 stars to 2, 3 & 4 stars.
Thanks, Pdfpdf (talk) 13:46, 16 March 2008 (UTC)

Epilogue?

So, ROGER DAVIES talk says: "send an email to Gieves and Hawkes" (thanks Roger), and ALR (talk) says: "I think it was when Commodore was made a substantive rank, some time in the late 90s I think?" (thanks ALR). Doesn't anyone have a reference? Pdfpdf (talk) 12:20, 25 March 2008 (UTC)

The change to a substantive rank for Commodores was probably via the Privy Council, as generally HM has to sanction any changes to her Officer Corps. That order would have annexes which describe the detailed consequences of the changes. As an alternative there might be an associated Defence Council Instruction which you might be able to track down.
The National Archive might have those, but it's more likely that the Naval Historical Branch could identify the document.
Naval Historical Branch
Admiralty Library,
Naval Historical Branch (Naval Staff),
No 24 Store (pp 20),
Main Road,
HM Naval Base Portsmouth,
PO1 3LU.
Tel: (023) 9272 4327 or (023) 9272 5300
Fax: (023) 9272 4003
Alternatively you might have to trawl through the various amendments to the dress regulations to identify which one identified the changes. I don't imagine that they're records per se, but I wouldn't imagine anyone quibbling over the OR required to use a transition as a reference.
ALR (talk) 14:04, 25 March 2008 (UTC)

More information

I got this reply to an email to library@royalnavalmuseum.org:

"The design of the shoulder boards changed in 2001 but unfortunately I have no references to the change. It would have been announced in a DCI (Defence Council Instruction)."

Pdfpdf (talk) 12:41, 3 April 2008 (UTC)

I'm surprised that the Hysterical section doesn't hold DCIs, they may be available from the National Archive or the MOD records organisation in Main Building. If they're not openly available then a Freedom of Information Act request would gain access to them, they're RESTRICTED so fairly esy to de-classify and I wouldn't see any need for a FOIA exemption.
ALR (talk) 13:24, 3 April 2008 (UTC)
Records from 2001 almost certainly won't have been transferred to TNA yet, so I'd try MOD first. David Underdown (talk) 13:42, 3 April 2008 (UTC)

The Answer!!

Richard Noyce, Curator of Artefacts at the Royal Naval Museum (.org) tells me:

"I've just been informed by one of our volunteers that the change in FO stars on shoulder boards was announced in DCI (Joint Service) 125/2001 & came into effect 23 Aug 2001."

Pdfpdf (talk) 12:02, 10 April 2008 (UTC)

Nice one :)
ALR (talk) 12:45, 10 April 2008 (UTC)

Newsletter

Has anyone considered starting a newsletter for this project? I could start it if no one opposes. - DiligentTerrier (and friends) 16:33, 9 April 2008 (UTC)

We have had one for a while now. See the current one and the archives. Woody (talk) 16:37, 9 April 2008 (UTC)
Do you have a bot to deliver it? - DiligentTerrier (and friends) 16:05, 10 April 2008 (UTC)
Yes, we do. Kirill 02:26, 11 April 2008 (UTC)

Soviet order of battle for invasion of Poland in 1939

This article seems to have mostly inaccurate information - I've got several sources for Soviet units that contradict this page, and at the moment the page isn't sourced. It's been sitting there for years without having been improved. Is there a template I can add saying it is inaccurate, or should I put it up for deletion? If I manage to get hold of a good sourced order of battle I could recreate it, but at the moment I don't have the detailed data necessary. Buckshot06 (talk) 22:59, 10 April 2008 (UTC)

I added a factual accuracy banner...is that what you were looking for? Cromdog (talk) 23:32, 10 April 2008 (UTC)
Thanks Cromdog. Buckshot06 (talk) 03:00, 11 April 2008 (UTC)

Copyright concerns

While making a thorough research and verifying the sources provided, I not only discovered that Major General Terry de la Mesa Allen was not a recipient of the Distinguished Service Cross, I also discovered that the article is not an "original" article as required by Wikipedia policy, but an article which infringes the copyrights of the National Timerwolf Association and Time Inc. It is a paste job using content from both sites which is in violation of copyright laws. See the following evidence and judge for yourselves: Terry Allen ©1999 National Timberwolf Association andTerry Allen and His Men Copyright © 2008 Time Inc. All rights reserved. Tony the Marine (talk) 03:15, 11 April 2008 (UTC)

14th Airlanding Brigade (United Kingdom)

Hi I dont know if this is the correct page to bring this up but should this article not be part of the British Indian Army and not the British Army ? JS1 (talk) 22:01, 11 April 2008 (UTC)

At the time of its formation and then disbanding, India was a colony of the United Kingdom and all its forces were part of the British Army. So, from a technical standpoint, it is not incorrect. Woody (talk) 22:03, 11 April 2008 (UTC)

List of current/commissioned US Navy ship merger

There is discussion going on over this merge @ WT Ships. Any input would be helpful. --Brad (talk) 00:40, 12 April 2008 (UTC)

German tank problem

Does anyone know anything about the German tank problem? This is aparently a mathematical formula developed by intelligence officers during WWI and, according to Google, is used in math classes today. I was going to speedy delete it as being patent nonsense or for lacking context, but suspect that it might be OK, if only as a redirect. --Nick Dowling (talk) 09:11, 26 March 2008 (UTC)

I'm by no means expert, but it has a funny smell. Ger tanks weren't #in simple numerical progression; the side #indicated unit/platoon, too. Within that, tho, the sequence was numerical; AFAIK, there's no relationship between the series & sequence #: i.e., 101 might be 1st tank, 1st platoon, 105 5h tank, & 201 1st tank, 2d plat, but there weren't 90+ tanks between 105 & 201. Hope that helps. (That said, it's an interesting way to estimate the numbers...) Trekphiler (talk) 13:11, 26 March 2008 (UTC)
FWIW, one of the sources linked says that they used serials from the the tire molds and tank gearboxes. — Bellhalla (talk) 13:23, 26 March 2008 (UTC)
Didn't read that closely. If so, they might well have gotten a notion of production, but it still smells a little, 'cause that would only tell how many in a given theatre (NAf wouldn't necessarily acct for production sent to SU) &/or given type tank (were same trannys used in Pz4 & Pz5?). It might offer some slight value, since intel is often a job of assembling a puzzle. Trekphiler (talk) 15:40, 27 March 2008 (UTC)
It's not patent nonsense. The numbers used were manufacturing serial numbers on specific pieces of equipment, not the unit designations painted on the turret sides. It wouldn't give one the total in any theatre, just the overall production. There's a book I came across some time ago on operations research during WWII that addresses it, but I can't remember the title or author. Askari Mark (Talk) 03:28, 13 April 2008 (UTC)

Help in dealing with speedy delete proposal

I have a problem at Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Soviet support for Iran during the Iran-Iraq war. Apparently, this was triggered by a bot that detected a copyvio of something I hadn't finished paraphrasing -- unfortunately, I took the text out of userspace too soon.

Now, the bot is happy, but several people seem convinced the subject can't be covered fairly. For those unfamiliar with the overall design of these articles, see User:Hcberkowitz#Iran and Iraq. You can see various drafts from that section; apparently, I have to be in better shape before moving to mainspace.

I'd like to get some precedent established that these sub-articles are intended to reduce rants currently on Iran-Iraq War, not to increase them. As many of you know, a similar sub-article technique helped reduce the sound and fury on the Central Intelligence Agency main page.

Howard C. Berkowitz (talk) 18:50, 6 April 2008 (UTC)

Sorry I've been on an enforced wikibreak for the last two months – and I'm still not yet really back – but I still feel the best way to deal with this particular issued is to combine such articles into a single "Foreign participation in the Iran-Iraq War". That way everybody gets a chance to have their say and the POV controversy doesn't just get spread out among a greater number of articles. Askari Mark (Talk) 03:41, 13 April 2008 (UTC)

A-Class review for Battle of Tassafaronga now open

The A-Class review for Battle of Tassafaronga is now open; all editors are invited to participate, and any input there would be appreciated! Thanks! Kirill 16:45, 12 April 2008 (UTC)

In or out of project?

At User:TonyTheTiger/Table, I am trying to keep track of my quality contributions by project. I have just added Bob Chappuis and Bump Elliott to the project by adding {{MILHIST}} tags to their talk pages. I am fairly certain that Chappuis has at least a low level of priority to the project. I am not sure if fairly notable service to the V-12 Navy College Training Program brings an article into the project. Does anyone have any guidance.--TonyTheTiger (t/c/bio/WP:CHICAGO/WP:LOTD) 20:55, 12 April 2008 (UTC)

Personally, I'd say Elliott doesn't qualify for the program. While its an interesting sidenote, I don't think its reason to list him in the project. Chappius, however, seems to be notable enough military wise to be listed. (as a side note, we don't particularly have a priotiy rating system here). Cromdog (talk) 21:30, 12 April 2008 (UTC)

Source needed

Would anyone have this book by chance

European Resistance Movements, 1939-1945: A Complete History by Jorgen Haestrup, 1981

Thank you in advance--mrg3105 (comms) ♠♥♦♣ 02:46, 13 April 2008 (UTC)

A-Class review for Army (Soviet Army) now open

The A-Class review for Army (Soviet Army) is now open; all editors are invited to participate, and any input there would be appreciated! Thanks! Woody (talk) 11:46, 13 April 2008 (UTC)

Flags and the military conflict infobox

I have seen claims that flags should not be used in the military conflict infobox, with references to WP:MILHIST, but I haven't been able to find out where this is written. Is it the case, and if so, why? -- Nidator T / C 17:34, 13 April 2008 (UTC)

It's a bit more complicated than "should not be used", I think; see WP:MILMOS#FLAGS for the actual guideline on the topic. Kirill 17:39, 13 April 2008 (UTC)
Ah, thanks for the answer. It seems I was looking in the wrong place. -- Nidator T / C 17:54, 13 April 2008 (UTC)

A-Class review for HMS Cardiff (D108) now open

The A-Class review for HMS Cardiff (D108) is now open; all editors are invited to participate, and any input there would be appreciated! Thanks! Kirill 12:56, 14 April 2008 (UTC)

Ships by navy category rename proposal

Twenty-five navy ship categories have been proposed for renaming as follows:

Category:Royal Bahamas Defence Force ships to Category:Ships of the Royal Bahamas Defence Force
Category:Royal Australian Navy ships to Category:Ships of the Royal Australian Navy
Category:Brazilian Navy ships to Category:Ships of the Brazilian Navy
Category:Bulgarian Navy ships to Category:Ships of the Bulgarian Navy
Category:Royal Canadian Navy ships to Category:Ships of the Royal Canadian Navy
Category:Canadian Forces ships to Category:Ships of the Canadian Forces
Category:French Navy ships to Category:Ships of the French Navy
Category:German Imperial Navy ships to Category:Ships of the German Imperial Navy
Category:Indian Navy ships to Category:Ships of the Indian Navy
Category:Irish Naval Service ships to Category:Ships of the Irish Naval Service
Category:Republic of Korea Navy ships to Category:Ships of the Republic of Korea Navy
Category:Korean People's Navy ships to Category:Ships of the Korean People's Navy
Category:Regia Marina ships to Category:Ships of the Regia Marina
Category:Republic of China Navy ships to Category:Ships of the Republic of China Navy
Category:Republic of Singapore Navy ships to Category:Ships of the Republic of Singapore Navy
Category:Republic of Vietnam Navy ships to Category:Ships of the Republic of Vietnam Navy
Category:Royal Fleet Auxiliary ships to Category:Ships of the Royal Fleet Auxiliary
Category:Royal Navy ships to Category:Ships of the Royal Navy
Category:Soviet Navy ships to Category:Ships of the Soviet Navy
Category:Sri Lanka Navy ships to Category:Ships of the Sri Lanka Navy
Category:United States Army ships to Category:Ships of the United States Army
Category:United States Navy ships to Category:Ships of the United States Navy
Category:Venezuelan Navy ships to Category:Ships of the Venezuelan Navy
Category:People's Liberation Army Navy ships to Category:Ships of the People's Liberation Army Navy
Category:Republic of the Philippines Navy ships to Category:Ships of the Republic of the Philippines Navy

If you would like to participate in the discussion, you are invited to add your comments at the entry on the Categories for discussion page. Thanks. — Bellhalla (talk) 14:23, 14 April 2008 (UTC)

Bob Chappuis FAC

A few weeks ago I posted some queries about Chappuis. His article would still be improved with some of your project's expertise on decorations, units and commands for his infobox? My main concern is his rank. He seems to have attained SGT. and LT. rank by some sources, but http://aad.archives.gov/aad/record-detail.jsp?dt=893&mtch=1&cat=all&tf=F&q=Robert+Chappuis&rpp=10&pg=1&rid=1263209 refers to him as a private.--TonyTheTiger (t/c/bio/WP:CHICAGO/WP:LOTD) 15:55, 14 April 2008 (UTC)

Image Request

Currently, the article on foregrips lacks both a history section and a free, clear image of a foregrip. Finding proper references for this article has also been difficult, and any assistance would be appreciated. Thanks --SharkfaceT/C 00:15, 15 April 2008 (UTC)

Tank Photographs

I have a bunch of tank pictures (still not done uploading them all) at My Subpage. I dont have the time to find a home for most of these photos so could you guys help. БοņёŠɓɤĭĠ₳₯є 05:30, 13 April 2008 (UTC)

See User_talk:BonesBrigade/USOrd. Bukvoed (talk) 18:50, 13 April 2008 (UTC)

Ive Added some more. БοņёŠɓɤĭĠ₳₯є 02:50, 16 April 2008 (UTC)

Peer review for Erich Hartmann now open

The peer review for Erich Hartmann is now open; all editors are invited to participate, and any input there would be appreciated! Thanks! Kirill 13:15, 15 April 2008 (UTC)


Question on Procedure

How do you nominate an article for re-assessment , when for example it was rated as stub class and you have added some content that would bring it upto start / B class ? JS1 (talk) 14:21, 15 April 2008 (UTC)

Thw lower ratings are pretty informal, so if you just mention the name of the article here, someone will take a look at it, in fact there is an argument that you could "de-stub" it yourself, but you probably shouldn't apply any rating higher than start to your own article. David Underdown (talk) 14:24, 15 April 2008 (UTC)
See WP:MHA#REQ where you can list an article for reassessment. Woody (talk) 15:12, 15 April 2008 (UTC)
Thanks starting small hope to get better soon JS1 (talk) 15:18, 15 April 2008 (UTC)

Battle of Poltava

Hi, the article Battle of Poltava seems to be showing the numbers for the whole battle which ranged over 14 days or something like that, while the article itself is about the day of the actual battle, I could, if you permit me to, change the casualties of the battle to those presented in Peter Englund's book "Poltava".

Björnebacke (talk) 18:15, 16 April 2008 (UTC)

A-Class review for Battle of Marion now open

The A-Class review for Battle of Marion is now open; all editors are invited to participate, and any input there would be appreciated! Thanks! Kirill 02:23, 17 April 2008 (UTC)

Disambiguation pages

I would like to present a suggestion. My suggestion is to create a tag or something to put on the talk pages of disambuiguation and other non article pages that would be used to gauge the grading of the page. Currently many Dab pages are marked as stubs and start class articles but they really aren't articles and most of them lack a meaningful structure. I believe this would reduce the number of pages that need to be reviewed as articles and would better clarify what their purpose is.--Kumioko (talk) 19:01, 16 April 2008 (UTC)

True disambiguation pages should be tagged with class=DAB; I'm not sure if the ones you're looking at simply haven't been tagged correctly, or are actually something other than a proper disambiguation page to begin with. Kirill 02:21, 17 April 2008 (UTC)
There is an established standard for disambiguation pages. However, we are possibly missing your point. Please show us one of the pages you critize and point out where exactly the problems are. Thanks Wandalstouring (talk) 10:57, 17 April 2008 (UTC)

Please check this audio

An link(see below) to an audio has been added to war elephant. Please check out whether the information provided by this link is useful according to encyclopedic standards (or just a promotional ploy because the author isn't the first one writing a book about war elephants). (Unfortunately, I won't have access to audio capable PCs for some time.)

The link:

Thanks Wandalstouring (talk) 10:54, 17 April 2008 (UTC)

Interesting, possibly useful to somebody

A recent NY Times article brought the subject vaguely to my attention, but after seeing an interview with the author, I began to look a bit closer into this. Trevor Paglen, currently seeking his PhD in geography I believe, recently published a book entitled "I Could Tell You But Then You Would Have to be Destroyed by Me: Emblems from the Pentagon's Black World" which details dozens of official and unofficial unit patches he's run across in his interviews and investigations into undisclosed Pentagon programs and units. It may be useful, or at the least interesting, and may provide a relatively reliable source on some Black Ops stuff, if anyone is interested. Cromdog (talk) 04:08, 8 April 2008 (UTC)

William Arkin's Code Names book is, having looked at the info available on the two books, probably better as a window into the black world, but both will have their uses. Buckshot06 (talk) 08:35, 18 April 2008 (UTC)

102d Rescue Squadron (United States)

The history section (which was moved from the 106th Rescue Wing by Buckshot) appears to be straight up copy and paste from somewhere, and is almost certainly a copyvio problem. If anyone has any info and could fix it up (even to stub level), it would be appreciated. Cromdog (talk) 16:43, 13 April 2008 (UTC)

I did some checking - it's a 1970s public domain piece by HQ NY ANG. The reference is now attached to the squadron article. Buckshot06 (talk) 08:33, 18 April 2008 (UTC)

Help with giving/receiving quarter

Hi. Editor Roregan and myself have been chatting about the term "giving quarter" and how that should be handled (you can see the conversation here.) Giving quarter had been redirecting to Mercy, but this was an incomplete treatment of the topic as it did not account for the "laws of war" usage. Roregan has done work to get a mention of this at Surrender (military) and redirected there instead which is a big improvement, but neither of us know much about this topic and we could use someone stopping by that article (or our discussion at my talk page) and providing some additional direction/expertise/sourcing on the topic. Any help would be appreciated. --Gwguffey (talk) 14:08, 17 April 2008 (UTC)

Interesting subject, with a lot of history and a lot of special cases. Just as one example, look at Guy Gabaldon. Is that incident, where he convinced people, about to commit suicide, to surrender giving quarter, or something that happened before that point? There's a substantial amount of pure military theory that being known for giving quarter is a good thing, for several reasons. The most basic is that people may not fight to the death, thinking they have no alternative, and cause more casualties on both sides. Close behind is getting prisoners for interrogation.
There is also a very controversial area of "military necessity". For example, if a submarine sinks a merchant ship, it simply has no place to take survivors aboard, although it may assist, or at least not interfere, with lifeboats. More difficult is the situation of a behind-the-lines ground patrol, which can't move quickly if it takes prisoners, and may simply be sentencing someone to a slow death if they tie him and leave him where he may never be found.
In the special forces qualification programs of several countries, the examiners, usually with psychologist help, ask candidates questions for which there is no good answer. "You are on an extended patrol behind enemy lines, near a known hostile village. A small child sees you, screams, and starts running home. What do you do?" The examiners are looking at how you approach the problem -- and something very much like this happened to a United States Army Special Forces team in Operation Desert Storm. It was a special reconnaissance mission, led, IIRC, by a Chief Warrant Officer Balwanz (sp?). The team had discussed this, and decided they didn't kill children. They would fight armed adults, and troops, but, after they were discovered, were preparing to die. Just in time, someone managed to fix a broken radio, and they were able to get air support and then helicopter exfiltration. It could have gone the other way.
Like it did for Bravo Two Zero in 1991 --Philip Baird Shearer (talk) 08:27, 18 April 2008 (UTC)
You bring up very good questions, because war sometimes is a choice of several options, all bad. Howard C. Berkowitz (talk) 14:33, 17 April 2008 (UTC)
Thank you for the response. Those insights on this topic were exactly why we wanted this subject mentioned here. It is even more clear that this needs the attention of editors with greater expertise to decide how this should be treated (turning the current Giving quarter redirect into a separate article, expansion of the section in surrender (military) or something else) by the encyclopedia. Given the various dimensions of "giving quarter" raised, is this a topic that would fit on WP:MILHIST's todo list? --Gwguffey (talk) 02:13, 18 April 2008 (UTC)
"giving quarter" is not defined under international law but "no quarter" is, so redirect "giving quarter" to "no quarter" and add any text one needs (see also Talk:List of established military terms#Surrender Dorothy) BTW it is also a good idea before writing a new article to see if a similar one exists either with a search or in the list ,like List of established military terms. If it does then create a link to the existing article if it does not then after creating it add it to the most appropriate military list so that others who come along can see that a similar article exists. --Philip Baird Shearer (talk) 08:27, 18 April 2008 (UTC)
Thanks for taking care of all of that, Philip. This wasn't about us creating an article, it was a case where Roregan and I could both tell the treatment of the topic as it stood wasn't accurate/complte, but neither us had the knowledge to fix it. Roregan was looking for info on the term and edited the Quarter dab page I was watching. That got us talking about what should be linked where since it was clear that the redirect of Giving quarter which had been pointing at Mercy for two years wasn't adequate. Your knowledge was exactly why we came here for help straightening this out. Thanks, again. Much better and best wishes. --Gwguffey (talk) 13:47, 18 April 2008 (UTC)

Peer review for Powhatan Beaty now open

The peer review for Powhatan Beaty is now open; all editors are invited to participate, and any input there would be appreciated! Thanks! Kirill 00:44, 19 April 2008 (UTC)

A-Class review for USS Comfort (AH-3) now open

The A-Class review for USS Comfort (AH-3) is now open; all editors are invited to participate, and any input there would be appreciated! Thanks! Kirill 00:44, 19 April 2008 (UTC)

Suggested added note to Flag icons

I’d like to propose adding this sentence at the end of the last paragraph of WP:MILMOS#FLAGS:

“One factor to keep in mind is that infoboxes have limited useful width and the use of flag icons can potentially conflict with readability.”

Comments? Askari Mark (Talk) 03:50, 18 April 2008 (UTC)

Wouldn't that make more sense attached to the third point in the first list ("Will adding icons disrupt the existing structure or flow of the text?")? Kirill 09:14, 18 April 2008 (UTC)
I suppose so. How about rendering that point as follows:
  • Will adding icons disrupt the existing structure or flow of the text? It is important to keep in mind is that infoboxes have limited useful width and the use of flag icons can potentially conflict with readability.
I think it helpful to explain what exactly to consider. Askari Mark (Talk) 21:56, 19 April 2008 (UTC)
I'd change it to "...useful width, so the use...", but it seems fine otherwise. Kirill 02:42, 20 April 2008 (UTC)
Done. Askari Mark (Talk) 03:41, 20 April 2008 (UTC)

NATO

The article on NATO needs a fairly significant update (and the maps themselves too). I don't know who should be in charge of it, but I figured that since this is the largest project linked to the article, then there will be a better chance to find somebody interested in doing the work. Nergaal (talk) 07:06, 18 April 2008 (UTC)

You may notice looking at the recent edit sumaries that I've been trying to cut down the size of the article after the size tag was added. I'd appreciate comments on whether a splitout of 'History of NATO' or 'Membership of NATO' is most appropriate, and on other issues, and interested parties can evolve a program of work - I'd be happy to take the lead. Comments invited here initially.. Buckshot06 (talk) 08:30, 18 April 2008 (UTC)
The 'Dialogue about membership' section should be chopped or moved to another article - it's too detailed for the main article. I think that the history section is OK where it is. The 'List of NATO operations' and see also sections should be integrated into other sections of the article. --Nick Dowling (talk) 10:33, 18 April 2008 (UTC)
What name for the 'Dialogue about membership' section? 'Potential new NATO members 2008-'? I agree, it's the most fluid and active part of the article, and splitting it off could bring some more stability and focus on all the rest of the things that should be talked about. I've already cut down the See Also section a lot; will work on that and the list of operations. Buckshot06 (talk) 11:18, 18 April 2008 (UTC)
May I suggest that the entire "Future Enlargement of NATO" section become an article in its own right as "NATO membership issues"? There's sufficient material to comprise a separate article. That would help address the overall size of the basic NATO article, with perhaps a brief summary left behind under "Membership". Askari Mark (Talk) 23:18, 19 April 2008 (UTC)
When I created that section, I wrote in my edit summary that that article would become Enlargement of NATO (the name is in line with other 'enlargement of' articles for the EU, UN etc) as of 23 April. This will cover NATO enlargement during the Cold War, '99, 200-and whenever it was, and the constantly shifting comments about future membership. Hopefully that will stabilise the main article, and there will be about a three-sentance summary. Buckshot06 (talk) 00:40, 20 April 2008 (UTC)
Actually, though, a topic like "NATO membership issues" would allow for broader historical scope to cover the French partial withdrawal of membership, Greece vs. Turkey, the "German question", and so on. Just a suggestion. Askari Mark (Talk) 03:45, 20 April 2008 (UTC)
The French withdrawal from the military structure is already throughly described in the history section - and remember eventually there will be a series of history articles describing NATO by period, which will cover this well. (It seems though from the present instability of the article spliting the 08 forward memberships is the highest priority, rather than History of NATO). Greece, Turkey, and Germany will be within the scope of the new article under Cold War enlargements. Buckshot06 (talk) 05:15, 20 April 2008 (UTC)

Image issues

Hi all. I've uploaded a new version of this image

over the existing image (for quality reasons), but it has not transfered this new version to the article here which is still displaying the old, faded version. Can anyone help? Thanks. Rebel Redcoat (talk) 14:33, 19 April 2008 (UTC)

It's OK, it seemes to be alright now.

New WPMILHIST template code

The code of {{WPMILHIST}} has just been updated following a fairly large-scale redesign to include a number of new features, including:

If anyone sees any errors or unexpected behavior from the banner, please let us know! Thanks! Kirill 15:23, 19 April 2008 (UTC)

Well done, Kirill. I know you've put a great deal of work into this, which is much appreciated!--ROGER DAVIES talk 15:34, 19 April 2008 (UTC)

For information, I've added a section – WP:MHA#Backlog of articles for tagging by task force – to the Assessment dept and it would be great if editors could drop by there from time to time to clear any build up! --ROGER DAVIES talk 15:34, 19 April 2008 (UTC)

RfC / mediation for milhist articles?

After my recent and ongoing stressful experiences at Armia Krajowa (I've recently improved the article on what was likely the largest WWII resistance group to an A-class status, but recently edit warring and other issues have led to article's protection) I thought that we are in need for some form of mediation/RfC with regards to milhist articles. I believe that an influx of neutral editors who would be available to quickly review and comment on such issues could stop such editing conflicts from developing and prevent editors from getting overly wikistressed. As usual, normal mediation, RfC or noticeboards can be slow, taking weeks before a single neutral editor appears. Milhist, the most active project, should be able to provide support to its members above this rather poor wiki standard. Perhaps we should create a section, akin to RfC, where we could list milhist articles in need of such input? PS. And yes, any input at Talk:Armia Krajowa will be appreciated.--Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus| talk 17:17, 15 April 2008 (UTC)

I'm not against helping, but I have only a cursory knowledge of the issues. How would you see this working?
At the Sri Lanka project, where they seem to have the best resolution I have seen, it appears that a claim of POV first goes to a talk page, with an explanation of why, for example, a source is biased. Still on the talk page, other editors suggest rewording, and things go back and forth until consensus is reached. Only then is there a revert or change. Would something like this be accepted here? Howard C. Berkowitz (talk) 17:23, 15 April 2008 (UTC)
I am not very knowledgeable about the subject either, but would be happy to help in any I can. I wish the Balkans were more like Sri Lanka. I have found that with entries having to with the Balkans (of any era), a neutral editor is of little help because POV editors simply make one illogical objection after another, while those of the opposite POV no longer bother. I can see where these sorts of tactics would tend to wear other editors down until "ownership" is abandoned to the most persistent POV. These entries will never make it out of Start-Class if this continues. I would welcome a system such as you propose. Civilaffairs (talk) 17:55, 15 April 2008 (UTC)Civilaffairs
It would, however the current situation is that both sides disagree with one another and cannot compromise (ex. certain editors repeats a certain claim and has not presented a source to back up their assertions; yet they edit wars over it). Thus a compromise is not likely to be reached, as it would go against our policies... :/ I don't see other way to deal with it but to have neutral editors comment there that our policies (V/UNDUE) should be upheld. Of course, there may be other ways to deal with that particular problem that I do not see.
On a larger scale, I certainly think that editors with experience in solving conflicts in other areas would be of great help to educating those who have not yet worked out solutions for their area.--Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus| talk 18:20, 15 April 2008 (UTC)
Humor can help the grimmest situation. I once watched a local TV station have its first hairspray abuser "foreign correspondent" make a report from an area of conflict. Her unforgettable lead? "The former Yugoslavia is becoming (pause for gasp) balkanized". Howard C. Berkowitz (talk) 19:40, 15 April 2008 (UTC)
Piotrus, I am new and perhaps I should not be contributing to this particular discussion. If I am out of line, please let me know. I am trying to learn, so here I am. Is it possible to reach a consensus that a sourced claim should stand? This leaves it open to change if the challenger can up up with a source, but provides a guideline that should help cut down on edit wars. I don't understand why that isn't SOP on Wikipedia. If I understand correctly, that would simmer things down at Armia Krajowa. Meanwhile,I can't seem to get anywhere on Operation Storm because one editor keeps zapping my sourced edits on the such nonsensical grounds as calling it "largest land offensive since WWII" is likening it to Srebrenica and calling it a "blitzkrieg" is drawing Nazi parallels. Civilaffairs (talk) 22:39, 15 April 2008 (UTC)Civilaffairs
Civilaffairs, in principle that is possible and even desirable; in practice, it is ofttimes difficult to achieve because people of good will can have quite disparate interpretations of what constitutes a reliable source. Not only are there POVs with respect to the treatment of content, there are POVs over what constitutes a reliable source. I cannot treat here individual problems from Armia Krajowa or Operation Storm, but with respect to the issue over sourced objective statements such as something being “the largest land offensive [up until that date] since WWII” (if that can indeed be shown to be "objective") should not be automatically removed. Instead, the issue should be addressed on the talk page and the responsibility is upon the objector to provide a reliable source that explicitly contradicts it; from that, discussion should ensue. This follows standard editorial guidelines for Wikipedia, and it may be that the objecting editor needs to be directed to appropriate reading on them. On the other hand, whether the term “blitzkrieg” should be used is a matter of personal preference. It has entered the general lexicon as a neutral term, but due to historical considerations its usage in a Croat vs. Serb context might indeed raise an intimation of hostile POV; for that sake, substituting “lightning strike” might be a workable compromise. In general, if all else fails on the talk page, Wikipedia's formal processes for mediation or for dealing with a particular editor's disruptive conduct can be pursued.
An approach like the Sri Lanka Reconciliation project could very well be established for the Balkans – if the editors there have sufficiently tired of the blood sport over related articles to be willing to develop compromises. It takes a long-term commitment with the active participation of members from each side who are willing to help corral the more recalcitrant editors from their POV. IMHO, one of the most useful innovations of WP:SLR has been to negotiate over which sources are reliable and NPOV, which are solely POV, and which are “qualified” sources – those deemed “reliable” for use in certain circumstances. Askari Mark (Talk) 18:10, 17 April 2008 (UTC)

The RfC so quickly provided by User:Clio the Muse here Talk:Armia_Krajowa#Soviet_partisans_largest.3F has been largely ignored, and although the claim of Armia Krajowa being the largest in the World has been toned and removed from the lead, the editor User:Piotrus seems to think that consensus can be reached on historical data, and retained the claim as

Such numbers made Armia Krajowa not only the largest of the Polish resistance movements, but among the largest (if not the largest) in WWII-time Europe [a].

despite the many sources provided by the RfC that it was not the largest underground resistance in Europe due to the western part of the Soviet Union, the area of operations of the Soviet partisans, also being in Europe.

Instead of listening to advice, or undertaking further research, the user insists that others should be conducting the research to prove him wrong, although this was already provided by the RfC.

The play with numbers, which swing from 200,000 to 600,000, and average 400,000 according to the article now, i.e. a 100% margin of error in estimation, leads to implications which are as it turns out quite misinforming to the reader because the claim is also made in the article that the

The battles with the Germans, particularly in 1943 and 1944, tied down several German divisions (about 930,000 German soldiers in total)

which is quite difficult to believe because the article elsewhere states that

AK had enough weaponry only for about 32,000 soldiers.[21]

Aside from the claim that nearly 55 infantry division-equivalents of German troops were required to control a dispersed underground resistance of 32,000 (2 divisions), for most of the war the occupied territory was administered by the military security units, and that its composition was county-based, with 80% of the county security companies (Ortskommandanturen) composed on non-German personnel (often formed Soviet POWs). The 930,000 therefore represent the combined strength of the security units commanded by the 5 divisional-level administrative commands (one in Lvov), two regimental-level commands (one in Minsk), three company-level commands (one in Minsk), with a total of about 20 security companies, and the logistics line-of-communications troops of the Army Groups Centre and North (from German OOB 1944, Ian V. Hogg), and not the impression given of 930,000 German combat troops. Even those German troops that were present, were often drawn from the Luftwaffe troops, and not combat formations.

I appreciate the desire of the editor in question to display the significance of the Polish resistance during the Second World War, but there must be limits to how far that can be taken within the scope of data available. While undoubtedly Armia Krajowa did have a large membership, and those armed did fight the German and non-German troops of occupation, and did contribute to the defeat of Germany on the Eastern Front by creating a friction in the Wehrmacht logistics administration, it seems to me that perspective and context need to be maintained before the article can be rated to A, or even increase in its current rating.--mrg3105 (comms) ♠♥♦♣ 08:54, 19 April 2008 (UTC)

Again, I have no desire to get drawn into the issue being raised regarding the relative sizes of the AK vs. Soviet partisans, but I have studied the subject in the (not recent) past. Frankly, the degree of uncertainty in the membership numbers on either side make it impossible to impartially claim that one or the other was clearly largest. If I was to cut the Gordian knot, I’d recommend including no claim beyond that the AK was one of the two largest resistance movements. Aside from being able to produce an independent, neutral and reliable source analyzing the issue which renders a judgment on behalf of one or the other, any such claim constitutes original research. Wikipedia is supposed to capture what others have reliably written on a topic, not write afresh. Askari Mark (Talk) 22:44, 19 April 2008 (UTC)
I would be perfectly happy with such a compromise (one of the two largest movements). Unfortunately, apparently everything I say and every gesture of good will I make towards mrg3105 is interpreted as some form of attack.--Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus| talk 02:11, 20 April 2008 (UTC)
Askari Mark, thank you for your helpful suggestions. I have proposed using POV tables similar to those formulated by the Sri Lanka Reconciliation project on the talk page at Operation Storm. An experienced and neutral MilHist editor has kindly taken an interest in helping to improve the article, as well.
At present, I don't hold out much hope for "a long-term commitment with the active participation of members from each side." It seems only one side is participating and only two editors from that side at present, one very active, one moderately so. The other side has long abandoned it. Perhaps someone will show up. Even participation by a more moderate editor from the participating side would help. A neutral editor who knows the subject well risks accusations of taking the absent side by default, even when the neutral editor has made contributions which might be construed as "in favour" of the participating side.
Establishing what is an NPOV source will not help with with the sorts of objections often raised, however, and other solutions must be found. For example, the editor objecting to "largest land offensive since WII" agreed that it was "of course" the largest, however it made the action sound "illegal" and "Serbs will compare it to Srebrenica" and therefore should not be included. I'm okay with taking it out because it is not considered important even though it does provide context for the reader, but not for these reasons. I have no problem whatsoever with replacing "blitzkrieg" with "combined-arms". "Lightening" is good, but sounds a little punny with "storm." (grin)
I could list four or five similar disputes, but don't want to hijack this discussion with particulars. Concrete questions about content, sources and reverts tend to get left up in the air and discussion gets sidetracked often, with new subjects constantly popping up and long copy-paste posts making the page difficult to navigate. Civilaffairs (talk) 18:19, 20 April 2008 (UTC)Civilaffairs
Not sure what you mean. The request was for input into a review for the article. None of my comments about the article have been ethnicity-based, but data based. This data is however overwhelmingly provided by Polish editors from predominantly Polish sources who are unwilling to accept English sources.--mrg3105 (comms) ♠♥♦♣ 03:11, 21 April 2008 (UTC)

Airborne Warfare

Hi there! I'm a new user and third-year history student at a British university, and I'm attempting to work on Airborne forces, and I was hoping someone might give the article a look over and help me compile a list of what needs to be done in the Talk Page. Any help would really be appreciated. I'm especially concerned with adding citations, which I'm having difficulty with. Thanks! Skinny87 (talk) 20:46, 20 April 2008 (UTC)

Hey Skinny87, you want WP:CITE#FULL for the detailed instructions on adding citations. Scroll a little way down - the first few paragraphs are policy stuff. Cheers Buckshot06 (talk) 21:20, 20 April 2008 (UTC)

Requesting change back to "Combatant" from "Belligerant"

Hi guys, following a request I posted here, I feel (in hindsight) the change to "belligerant" was a bad idea in the conflict infobox was a bad idea. It was done in attempt appease warring sides on the Iran-Iraq War article (although apparently it's been mentioned beforehand), unsuprisingly they're still warring lol. On a more serious note, it is wrong to change a template that is shown on loads of articles, because of an edit war occuring on just one article. The problem is with the Iran-Iraq war crowd, not the template.

Why does this matter? Well this "POV push" idea of adding countries who supported other countries to infoboxes is starting to spread. The sources for these are often opinions in themselves and the criteria for "support" is so extensive that pretty much every country could appear on the list on both sides! These infoboxes were made to summarise data for quick reading, not to argue over the finer points of conflcit, that's what the article is for (you can't sum up a complex situation as "support" with just a flag symbol). Ryan4314 (talk) 09:44, 5 April 2008 (UTC)

Agreed that the specific problem was POV push on a particular page. Still, I believe belligerent is the correct term from the Geneva Conventions, etc., where a belligerent is a nation (or equivalent) while a combatant is a person.
Yes, there was POV push. If you'll excuse me a brief (but still MILHIST) digression, I have a book somewhere, titled, IIRC, Why the Confederacy Lost the War. It contained an interview with George Pickett, whon, while not the brightest light in the strategic chandelier, was a straightforward and honest man. The interviewer asked why the Battle of Gettysburg was a defeat for the Confederacy, and probably the turning point of the war? Was it that JEB Stuart's cavalry lost sight of their scouting mission and failed to inform Robert E. Lee of the size of the Union Forces? Was it that James Longstreet had no enthusiasm for the frontal assault on the Union positions? Was it technical error on the part of the Confederate artillery, with the pre-assault bombardment? Pickett scratched his head and said, "Well, I always thought the Yankees had something to do with it."
I say that because the most strident POV push was that the US was responsible for everything that happened to Iran in that which was called the Iran-Iraq War. To paraphrase Pickett, I always thought the Iraqis, who invaded Iran, had something to do with it. There were some lesser POVs about flags, such as Arab or Kurdish volunteers, but the main POV issue was about the US flag. Secondary issues dealt with order of battle and casualties.
As long as there is something that could be considered a Great Power proxy war, there will be a POV push to blame the major powers. To me, the belligerents are recognizable as the ones that are shooting, and, at the infobox level, the ones that shot most consistently. Otherwise, does a WWII infobox put Italy in both columns? At various times, the US and USSR supported both sides, or were neutral.
The Tanker War does confuse things. I don't know if this is too OR, but my contention is that it would be far better, given the nature of the article, to speak of what was really an Iran-US War, which happened to be at the same time as the main Iran-Iraq war. I find it very hard to believe, and I haven't seen reputable sources that confirm that the US reaction was a coldly calculated effort to improve Iraq's financial position by protecting its tankers while allowing Iraq to attack Iranian oil facilities. That suggests the US had far more control over Saddam Hussein than it did; the only time anyone pulled Saddam's strings, the strings were tightly around his neck and only for a short time. Yes, there is always the question of why the US did not retaliate either for the Liberty or the Stark, although there's a little better case the Stark was truly an accident.
Given the domestic political attitude, after the Embassy hostages, no US president could afford to be seen soft on Iran -- but I think the strongest US casus belli, going back to the War of 1812 and the Barbary Wars, was freedom of navigation. Direct attacks on Iranian tankers were one thing, but the Iranian use of drifting mines in international waters, I believe, enraged the US Navy, who got decisionmakers listening.
I haven't meant to ramble this long, but, as many of you know, the approach I have taken is to start creating sub-articles for every nation that supported Iran, Iraq, or both. By making those points specific, it becomes harder, although never impossible, to POV push. It strikes me, however, that it may not be intuitively obvious that the US is controlling the side using French and Russian weapons against the side using US and UK weapons. Howard C. Berkowitz (talk) 02:34, 7 April 2008 (UTC)
Sorry, also meant to add (don't want to seem like I'm changing my argument) I think the word "combatant" is a more simple understandable term, I'd never really heard the word belligerent until I came across this Iran-Iraq war thing (I can provide a link to where I expressed the view before in case anyone wants to check). Ryan4314 (talk) 23:38, 7 April 2008 (UTC)

Usage in international legal documents

But these do have different meanings in international law. The Fourth Geneva Convention uses "combatant" to refer to individuals, as, for example:

Article 3 states that even where there is not a conflict of international character the parties must as a minimum adhere to minimal protections described as: noncombatants, members of armed forces who have laid down their arms, and combatants who are hors de combat (out of the fight) due to wounds, detention, or any other cause shall in all circumstances be treated humanely, with the following prohibitions...

In contrast, http://www.icrc.org/ihl.nsf/WebART/150-110007?OpenDocument, Hague Convention (II) with Respect to the Laws and Customs of War on Land and its annex: Regulations concerning the Laws and Customs of War on Land, refers to belligerents as groups:

ANNEX TO THE CONVENTION : Regulations respecting the laws and customs of war on land #Section I : On belligerents #Chapter I : On the qualifications of belligerents

Article 1. The laws, rights, and duties of war apply not only to armies, but also to militia and volunteer corps fulfilling the following conditions:

1. To be commanded by a person responsible for his subordinates; 2. To have a fixed distinctive emblem recognizable at a distance; 3. To carry arms openly; and 4. To conduct their operations in accordance with the laws and customs of war.

In countries where militia or volunteer corps constitute the army, or form part of it, they are included under the denomination "army."

Returning to the Inforboxes

I will admit I am not a fan of infoboxes in general, but I would prefer that they use the terminology of generally accepted international law, except, perhaps, when the Bush Administration is interpreting. :-( Howard C. Berkowitz (talk) 00:47, 8 April 2008 (UTC)

Yes, the change to "belligerent" addresses some problems but creates others. A basic challenge here is that the infobox is used from everything from world wars involving modern states to little raids between tribal factions. The terminology used in modern international law has little relevance to numerous pre-modern, small-scale conflicts that took place before the idea of the "state" emerged. I'd prefer that the field be renamed to the much more flexible Opponents, or Primary Opponents if we want to weed out the excessive listings we often see. —Kevin Myers 13:13, 10 April 2008 (UTC)

"Opponents" (or some variation on that) seems reasonable, I think. Kirill 13:23, 10 April 2008 (UTC)
Opponent is nice in that there's no conflict with definitions in international law. As mentioned, there's been excessive fighting over the infobox content at Iran-Iraq. How would the fundamental problem of reaching consensus on "opponents" be reached? Would it be any easier? For the record, I've been working on sub-articles there, documenting 30-40 countries that provided "support" to one side or the other. What is the difference between "supporter" and becoming an opponent?
Is the real problem that there are only two columns, yet modern war can be multipolar, or have countries that supply arms to both sides?
There are actually ways to make the infobox have either one or three columns, but that admittedly doesn't help with the even more unusual cases. ;-)
The fundamental problem, really, is that there are (a) conflicts which are sufficiently convoluted that any reasonable attempt to parse them into the simple form required to construct a summary box is unlikely to work, and, separately (b) conflicts where there is substantial controversy regarding aspects of the historical narrative. When those two sets intersect—as they do on the Iran-Iraq War—we have problems; but note that merely convoluted situations (with people switching sides, indirectly supporting belligerents, etc.) don't typically cause issues if the conflict itself is not controversial. Kirill 13:34, 10 April 2008 (UTC)
Kevin makes the essential encyclopedic argument. While accepted today in this most modern medium, using terminology like the term "belligerent" makes less sense in describing tribal or pre-state societies. While I can live with "opponent" (which has a somewhat negative connotation, being inherently reactive), IMHO the wording might be better on the thesauric continuum between "participant" and "disputant", neither of which are appropriate themselves. BusterD (talk) 13:45, 10 April 2008 (UTC)
This discussion has recently come up in American Revolutionary War task forceas well. Personally, I prefer the term Belligerent as a more apt definition then Opponents, Combatants, etc... One it is the legally recognizable term under International Law, second, as far as the ARW goes, the war was between Great Britain and the United States. Putting Hessians, New Jersey Miltia, etc... as the Opponents of a battle seems to be to focused on the detail of the battle and not the overall conflict. It is my belief that the info box is supposed to be a quick snapshot of the event in relation to the overall conflict. As far as the Iran-Iraq war goes, regardless of who supported whom, it was international recognized as a war between those two nation states, whether the US, Soviets, etc... were involved, if the actual soldiers on the ground were Iraqi/Iranian or Kurds is mostly irrelevant as far as the overall conflict.
My suggestion on the ARW page, and I will repeat it here, is that another line be added to the infobox for forces engaged. Then, for example, the Info Box for the Battle of Trenton would read Belligerents: United States Great Britain, Forces Engaged: Continental Army, Hessian Mercenaries & British dragoons. This would inform the user of the overall conflict as well as the actual combatants on the field. dashiellx (talk) 14:56, 10 April 2008 (UTC)
One of the chief problems on Iran-Iraq, is that some editors have a shared POV that the United States was approximately equal to Iraq on one side, and, to a significant extent, controlled the Iraqis, which seems a bit surprising given Saddam's personality. This becomes more difficult if one considers the Tanker War as completely subordinate to the Iran-Iraq War. The editors I have mention believe it was, and was fought only to protect Saddam's economy and hurt Iraq's. From my perspective, those may have been factors, but the reality is that the US was fighting for freedom of navigation back to the War of 1812. This may or may not be the consensus, but I tend to treat the Tanker War as generally separate. Unfortunately, there is no separate article for it, and I'm hesitant to start one unless a number of people support the idea; it would be bound to set off a major delete war.

Some examples for complex infobox issues

Let me get away from Iran-Iraq, and take two examples that are typical of modern wars, with many participants at various levels. World War II doesn't have flags at all, but wikilinks to Allies and Axis. I think that's appropriate. If you were going to use flags, where would Italy go, before and after its surrender? Where would the Soviet Union be in August 1939, June 1941, and April 1945?

Next, look at Korean War. Do all the flags help understanding? Are the categories correct, especially putting the Soviet Union as a belligerent? I recognize the Soviet Union sent massive supplies as well as advisors, but I tend to think of the belligerents as the countries at the cease-fire or surrender conference table. Howard C. Berkowitz (talk) 15:46, 10 April 2008 (UTC)

I agree with Hcberkowitz. "Belligerent" is standard usage and should apply strictly to entities on the level of state/faction/tribe which are physically engaged in the conflict (facing each other on the battlefield, lobbing cruise missiles or rocks at each other). In the case of Great Power proxy wars, let the Great Powers be "opponents" (as they surely are/were), so long they did not physically engage the other party. Opponents do not necessarily engage each other directly. (Yeah, I know, Korea. Nobody did one like that again. Too hard to fit all those flags in an infobox.) "Combatant" should be reserved for an individual physically engaged in battle (as it is already in standard usage). Belligerents in infoboxes. Opponents in the content secton. If opponent doesn't work, and may not in cases where there is side-switching, then perhaps let them be "parties to the conflict."
Is it appropriate to ask here what to do with peacekeeping casualties? Is it possible to divide a split box into one at the bottom to include them, or should they simply go in the content of the entry?Civilaffairs (talk) 16:32, 13 April 2008 (UTC)Civilaffairs
I side with Howard, dashiellx and Civilaffairs on this and not because of the Iran-Iraq War problem, but rather because it forced me to think through the issue. “Combatants” has long use as specifically meaning those individuals engaging in combat; “noncombatants”, obviously, are those who do not. The English language has a long history of letting the meaning of words be a little elastic, so long as the context is clear; however, in an infobox heading there is no context. “Belligerents”, while not an everyday word in everybody’s vocabulary, has the advantage of being generally accepted by experts and lay analysts as an accurate, clear, and (particularly in international law) more concise meaning. And, yes, it works perfectly fine for describing tribal or pre-state societies and even non-state organizations. “Opponents” is even more vague than “combatants” used in a limited vernacular fashion – it’s much more open-ended. It can be construed to include, say, Vietnam War protestors (country by country where they existed, since there was never a unified organization involved), political parties (of which there may be several per country), refugee groups, peacekeeping forces, countries providing solely non-combat troops or resources to one side of a conflict, etc. They all “oppose” something. “Participants” is broader still and can draw in the broad civilian population and workforce, the Intl. Red Cross, NGOs, trade partners, news media, think tanks, and so forth. And let’s not even get into identifying the “sides” and who is on which (or sometimes each at various times).
While all of these things can be handled appropriately within the text of the article (or of a related article), there’s just no way to – or reason, I’d insist – to handle all this in an infobox. An infobox simply can’t handle nuance and context and massive amounts of information, and it shouldn’t be called upon to do so. Unfortunately, POV warriors find it an enticing place to insert their NPOV point. That’s what all the brouhaha in the Iraq-Iran War article was about. A great deal of ink … er, electrons … have been spilt trying to get that understanding across and recommendations made regarding how to best handle it in the article itself, but to little or no avail. There’s plenty of space to handle such issues – and handle them well – in the body of the article, but not in one part of a space-limited infobox. POV wars are difficult enough to resolve in the articles; it’s hopeless in an infobox.
I’m neutral about Dashiellx’s proposal for a “Forces engaged”; I don’t think it would resolve the issue at hand, but it would be useful in adding context in a range of cases. (I would recommend it being optional, though.) Askari Mark (Talk) 03:39, 18 April 2008 (UTC)
I agree with Askari Mark; point taken on "opponents" and I withdraw my earlier suggestion of it. This question does provoke one to think more carefully and deeply. As Askari Mark points out, many factors influence the conduct and outcome of a military campaign and are not limited to outside nations providing substantial assistance such as funding, materiel, intel and training. I am not sure it is possible to neatly label them all for general application. Yet another reason only "belligerents" should go in the info box. Civilaffairs (talk) 15:02, 19 April 2008 (UTC)Civilaffairs

Possible consensus on "belligerents"?

This dicussion seems to have died down, with most support, I think, for keeping the field named "Belligerents". We could use some comments on Dashiellx's idea for a new optional field named "Forces engaged", or something similar. This could be useful where the forces engaged are different than the belligerents, as in his example of the Battle of Trenton, or when you want to list the state as the "belligerent", and the army (or whatever) as the "force engaged". One downside is that the field would be open to overuse, with people trying to cram entire orders of battle into the infobox (which they do sometimes anyway). Thoughts? —Kevin Myers 05:29, 21 April 2008 (UTC)

Sorry I haven't checked this discussion since I posted it, I like the sound of "opponent", but I'll happily choose whatever word stops people using these meagre levels of "support" to make it seem like a country is a full on combatant. Ryan4314 (talk) 07:22, 21 April 2008 (UTC)
I came here to request exactly the change at the top of this discussion. 'Belligerents' is a complex word, and carries overtones of agression. 'Combatants' seems to me clearer and without the same overtones. With regard to Iran-Iraq "hard cases make bad law", which means that one exceptional case should not be allowed to dictate to the thousands of other cases. Would the simple solution be to allow a special version of the infobox for cases where 'combatant' was not appropriate. I would totally support the idea that both 'belligerents' and 'combatants' are limited to those who actually fought, not those who sent supplies nor incited to war. DJ Clayworth (talk) 14:31, 21 April 2008 (UTC)
DJ Clayworth, I see what you mean here, but the problem is that in established usage, "combatant" refers to an individual, while "belligerent" refers to a group (nation, faction, tribe, etc.). There is a post further up in this discussion about the Hague Convention. I see other dangers with using "combatants" such as people trying to cram mercenaries and whatnot into the box, too. I have thought hard about this question, and haven't been able to come up with a good replacement for "belligerent" -- I'm not saying there isn't one, just that I can't think of one. Civilaffairs (talk) 01:12, 22 April 2008 (UTC)Civilaffairs
In a war, rather by definition, at least one side is being aggressive, although, for domestic consumption at least, it claims itself as the ravished virgin, or something like that. Even if a party put none of its nationals into combat and used exclusively mercenaries, the combination of hiring state and individual combatants still is a belligerent.
The term "virtual state" has been used for transnational groups, but I still don't see that invalidating the generic concept of a belligerent. Where the Geneva Conventions tend to break down is when a belligerent is not a nation-state. Still, one can then go to hostis humani generis, the legal term for "enemies of humanity", classically pirates and slavers, that can be engaged by any nation. For non-national parties to the conflict (carefully avoiding a specific word), one might look at the United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea. Howard C. Berkowitz (talk) 02:32, 22 April 2008 (UTC)
My apologies, as I was not very careful in my wording about mercenaries. What I meant was: some editors may be tempted to add the country of origin of mercenaries as an "opponent" or "combatant" to the infobox, even if the mercenaries were not numerous and privately hired by one of the belligerents. This might not prove to be a problem, but I can think of several instances where POV editors might be tempted to try it. Civilaffairs (talk) 13:23, 22 April 2008 (UTC)Civilaffairs
Lots and lots of cases because it also including members of foreign volunteer brigades (such as those who fought in Spain on the side of the Republic) as well as foreigners who have taken an oath of allegiance in an army (44 nations are currently employed in the British Army (See British Army#Recruitment). --Philip Baird Shearer (talk) 13:44, 22 April 2008 (UTC)

Some bold rewrites, as well as a need for help making several articles consistent and minimally overlapping -- possibly spawning specialized articles

The new version of insurgency contains almost everything that was in the old version, but in a more formal context and with supplemental material. Unfortunately, politicians and news talking heads try to make "insurgency" a new concept specific to Iraq, or restrict its definition, or separate a wide range of actions that are reasonably considered insurgency. One important point is that terrorism does not necessarily equate to insurgency or vice versa.

I'm sorry, but I cannot find a simple and universal definition of insurgency, much as some people would like -- at least without violating WP:OR. General-purpose dictionary definitions are oversimplified to the point of uselessness.

See also counterinsurgency, foreign internal defense (FID), unconventional warfare, and counterterrorism. These articles are in varying shape, but should be considered together to minimize overlap and maximize appropriate cross-referencing. I did move some, but perhaps not enough, material out of FID. Note the history section toward the end of FID; while FID is a US term, there is some specific tie-in to British and French approaches.

Knowledgeable constructive criticism, and editing in some cases, is more than welcome. This is a lot of material to reconcile in one's head.

Howard C. Berkowitz (talk) 17:24, 13 April 2008 (UTC)

Related questions about overlapping articles

While I signed up to improve unconventional warfare, unless I interpret it to be US-specific, where UW is a specific mission of United States Army Special Forces, I'm wondering if it even makes sense to have an article on this topic. There are much more extensive articles on guerilla warfare, insurgency (disclaimer: I did significant recent rewrite), asymmetric warfare, etc. While I forget which tool shows which articles reference an article, I did notice that several articles that reference UW seem to do so via an article by Tomes, in a reputable journal, but I think that has questionable elements.

So -- is it reasonable to redirect UW to the US definition, just as it has been pointed out that foreign internal defense is largely the US doctrine for counterinsurgency? Things aren't always pure, as FID, much of which I wrote, does examine related British and French doctrine and history.

Howard C. Berkowitz (talk) 10:00, 14 April 2008 (UTC)

I would go ahead and redirect UW to the US definition; lets not confuse the issue by widening what is a specific US military term to other armies and other times... Buckshot06 (talk) 10:20, 14 April 2008 (UTC)
I have an anonymous IP demanding the UW article, previously about 4-5K characters, be globalized and US doctrine made a subsection. The article history does not indicate that there was the large body of work he suggests was stable. I'm writing away, and it's now up to 25K or more with two original drawings, and more to come. I've asked him to bring his concerns here. Do you think, Buckshot, that you will be able to hold your wild US chauvinism in check if he does so? :-)
Insurgency, incidentally, is something I have been making every attempt to globalise. Note "globalise" here and "globalize" in the previous paragraph; that is not an accident. In like manner, foreign internal defense is the US (with some British and French) doctrine of counter-insurgency. There probably does need to be some balancing and consistency editing between insurgency and counter-insurgency. Howard C. Berkowitz (talk) 04:23, 24 April 2008 (UTC)

The dispute continues...a possible compromise

While I think the titles would be somewhat awkward, I wonder if the answer to this sort of argument, which often leads to so many globalised examples that there is no concise definition for a specific term, is to create articles that are explicitly about a national doctrine: "Soviet doctrine for maneuver(armored?) warfare", "Mao/China's doctrine for guerilla warfare," "US doctrine for unconventional warfare (specifically guerilla)", "Israeli special reconnaissance doctrine," etc.

Part of the problem is that of the hundreds of current and important historic militaries, relatively few have formal doctrines. There is also the issue of multinational doctrine, certainly NATO, and possibly ASEAN for antipiracy and a few other missions.

I don't have a specific answer, but I am certainly not willing to make a coherent article-in-progress subordinate to a "globalised" introduction that I consider misleading or wrong. Howard C. Berkowitz (talk) 14:13, 24 April 2008 (UTC)

Exactly. We write articles on the specific military doctrinal points, and use their terms exactly. UW is a US doctrinal term, and should be written about as such. Thus 'Low Intensity Operations' becomes a Br/Aus/Commonwealth/others(?) discussion of the specific term, and 'Precision Manoeuver' (bet you'll have to look that one up), if ever written, becomes a discussion of that specific New Zealand Army term. We must tie doctrinal discussions to something solid, and terms are the way to do it. I am just going to create Category:US Department of Defense doctrine and put it in, which can be subcategorised when the Air Force starts wailing about the wild blue, etc. Actually, best way to solve your problem Howard might be to explicitly signpost the whole discussion by sketching out Current United States Army doctrine, or simply 'United States Army doctine,' thpugh that would require a historical discussion. Buckshot06 (talk) 23:48, 24 April 2008 (UTC)
Agreed. I can't deal with an article that defines unconventional warfare as the opposite of conventional warfare, then sweepingly includes guerilla operations, nuclear warfare, emasculation, blockade, white phosphorus, attacks against civilian infrastructure, etc. Oh...it does mention special forces used unconventionally. While I understand some SF troopers found themselves advising Kuwaiti armored forces in 1990-1991, I read an interview with one senior NCO who had never spent a day in an armored or mechanized unit, and was desperately trying to keep a day's reading ahead of his students.
If we ever run into militant penguins, we have to deal with their doctrine of combat in black tie and tails. If you would, could you mention some of the more serious things at unconventional warfare? Howard C. Berkowitz (talk) 23:59, 24 April 2008 (UTC)
Do you have the same book as me? MSgt Joseph Lloyd was advising the Kuwaiti 35th Armd Bde, as described in the US Army campaign history, Certain Victory, pp.103-106? Buckshot06 (talk) 00:02, 25 April 2008 (UTC)
Sounds like the right book. :-) Conventional unconventional warfare? ::-)
Er, no. External Foreign Internal Defense. See what you think of my recasting of UW. Buckshot06 (talk) 00:17, 25 April 2008 (UTC)
Was there a book saying the Kuwaitis had started focusing on maintenance, etc? Doesn't sound much like an Arab army (at least from my reading of Pollack, Arabs at War)? Buckshot06 (talk) 01:06, 25 April 2008 (UTC)
I will have to hunt it down; there are some. At least part of my understanding comes from talking to people who served there, and developed deep and mutual respect with the Kuwaitis. Again from informal understanding, individual Saudi commanders also started recognizing that you have to water a horse and change filters in a tank. Howard C. Berkowitz (talk) 01:58, 25 April 2008 (UTC)
So when SAS exchanges with Delta, that's domestic external defense? Howard C. Berkowitz (talk) 00:21, 25 April 2008 (UTC)
Or, when the SAS do the things that Delta can't :-). Sorry, that's my Br/Commomwealth prejudice showing through..Buckshot06 (talk) 00:23, 25 April 2008 (UTC)
There's no argument that SAS was the model for Delta, and there's probably considerable similarity between what used to be 14 Intelligence Coy and what used to be the Intelligence Support Agency. There's considerable cross-fertilization. Nevertheless, the Commonwealth took a great step backwards when Canada took counterespionage away from the RCMP. If you can run a surveillance, without being notice while wearing a red suit and riding a horse, you have to be good. Howard C. Berkowitz (talk) 01:58, 25 April 2008 (UTC)
Thank you. Sgt. RenfrewCanada 10:15, 25 April 2008 (UTC)
Just don't give any command authority to Doris Stockwell Day.

Temporarily taking my leave of Sgt. Renfrew and his horse...

The anon objecting to UW continues to make observations both disparaging and of low semantic content. While I was able to get some help from the Wikiquette noticeboard, there are more important things to do than argue that "unconventional warfare is the opposite of conventional warfare" is, perhaps, not the most elegant definition ever offered.

Building on Buckshot's observation that it is useful to identify specific national/multinational doctrines in parallel with more global and conceptual frameworks, I'd like to make a proposal. Where I'd most like help is on less awkward names for national doctrines. Let me offer a framework for special operations, both general and national:

Others? Military government vice civil affairs? Counterproliferation? Psychological operations?

  • U.S. Special Operations Doctrine I do not like this name, and would like alternatives (the terms are all from Joint Publication 3-05, Doctrine for Joint Special Operations
    • U.S. Special Operations Doctrine for direct action
    • U.S. Special Operations Doctrine for special reconnaissance
    • U.S. Special Operations Doctrine for foreign internal defense
    • U.S. Special Operations Doctrine for unconventional warfare
    • U.S. Special Operations Doctrine for counterterrorism
    • U.S. Special Operations Doctrine for counterproliferation of weapons of mass destruction
    • U.S. Special Operations Doctrine for civil affairs operations
    • U.S. Special Operations Doctrine for psychological operations
    • U.S. Special Operations Doctrine for information operations

Are there other national doctrines where articles would be logical, always recognizing that the U.S. publishes more of its doctrine than, it seems, anyone else? It would be frightening to be in the area of a kinetic strike with a full U.S. doctrinal library.

I do have material on more historical British and French counterinsurgency, at the end of foreign internal defense.

Howard C. Berkowitz (talk) 23:30, 25 April 2008 (UTC)

A couple of requests

There's some concern here about inclusion/deletion. Can I request a "tank tactics" page, if one doesn't already exist? Also, here, suggests to me something like "tank camo" or "vehicle camo" could be of use. Trekphiler (talk) 13:51, 14 April 2008 (UTC)

General vs. national/alliance doctrine

This may not be the best example, but tank tactics (and design) changed radically over history, and even among nations at a given point in history. For example, the U.K. and U.S. main battle tanks are among the best in the world, but the two countries have some fairly strong differences in armament (well, ammunition carried).

Some WWII issues included the distinction between "cruiser" and "infantry tanks", and, not well understood in WWI, that tanks are more a breakthrough than an infantry support weapon.

I could see an article about tank tactics (or some other word) that sets out a structure for the doctrinal differences, and then (my preference) articles, or at least sections, that deal with the implementation of doctrine in a given time and place.

This broad issue is very much of interest to me at present, as I have one skirmish about a national doctrine-specific article unconventional warfare when a deliberately global one exists (insurgency). I've also asked the question of whether there should be a general article in issues about air campaigns, separating the national interpretations (JP233 for offensive counter-air)?

Howard C. Berkowitz (talk) 14:20, 24 April 2008 (UTC)

That's very like what I had in mind. More, I understand (since originally posting this) there are already "subsidiary" pages that could be brought under an umbrella page of that kind, while also taking out some technical detail from Tank (where it doesn't strictly belong, IMO), yet offering more info for those interested.
It could also offers insight into given armies' views at a given period, such as Germany's in adopting blitzkrieg or Tukhachevsky's research, or Britain's, where the infantry & army trained to totally different doctrines. Could also puncture some myths, like just how unmotorized & under-armored the Germans really were in Spring '40. Trekphiler (talk) 06:02, 25 April 2008 (UTC)

Vietnam War

Could we have some more eyes here. One user is adding obscure info saying that the US motivation for the war was some oil deposit in VN. Vn has hardly any oil deposits. Also, there is another guy saying that the result is "peace with honor" - This is about the 3rd most viewed MILHIST article I think... about 40k reads per day IIRC. Blnguyen (bananabucket) 02:26, 18 April 2008 (UTC)

It's certainly in awful shape. While the structure is OK and there are lots of references, there's a seemingly undue focus on the US's experiance in Vietnam and a lot of the text is low quality (eg "Johnson had a difficult time with American foreign policy makers, specifically Harriman and Acheson, who to Johnson spoke a different language") and the quotes from American government officials are confusing and not needed. The article reads like a history channel show on the war. --Nick Dowling (talk) 00:10, 19 April 2008 (UTC)
Yes, the article is mostly patrolled by people obssess with US foreign policy who like to focus on everything American as being improtant, rather than all the fighting and destruction. Any attempts to prune it down are interpreted as covering up US failure and what not. Blnguyen (bananabucket) 03:51, 28 April 2008 (UTC)
Work is indeed needed. As far as background, I'd suggest this has too much background, given that it's called the Second Indochina War. Some thought should go into the various wars of the area -- I'm quite serious that the Two Trung Ladies are extremely relevant when grasping the enormous lack of Sino-Vietnamese historical perspective in what I consider the single most damning U.S. government document on Johnson Administration policy: http://vietnam.vassar.edu/ladrang03.html.
First Indochina War is given as 19 December 1946 until 1 August 1954, which hardly addresses resistance against the Japanese, as well as other things going back to the Trung Sisters. I'm not completely sure why 1959 is picked as the start of the Second Indochina War. It doesn't make sense from a U.S. standpoint, since the significant involvement starting in 1959 was in Laos, not counting the Saigon Military Mission (CIA) that opened in 1954 and planned for guerilla operations.
1959 does make sense from a North Vietnamese standpoint, as the 559 Transportation Group, assigned to build the Ho Chi Minh trail and other infrastructure, encodes its May 1959 creation in its name. Otherwise, while I'm not sure I know what to call it, there was something that started by the time Diem refused to hold the referendum on unification.
Should we agree on a timeline of the wars of Indochina/Vietnam? I can offer some templates (PPT files of mine) that I used in SIGINT in Modern History#US operations in Southeast Asia, which I created just to reconcile several intelligence histories (NSA and Army, mostly). Howard C. Berkowitz (talk) 00:35, 25 April 2008 (UTC)

Soviet Stratigic Operations

There is a page called Strategic operations of the Red Army in World War II which lists all the translated Soviet names for their operations. For reasons to do with the history of creating pages Talk:Prague Offensive became a general discussion page for pages which are called after Soviet WWII Operations (see the list under Talk:Prague Offensive#Prague Offensive Operation). After the battle of Kursk as the initiative on the Eastern Front moved in favour of the Soviets, it makes sense to map articles onto their initiatives as is done in most histories of the period and using names that reflect that, such as the Prague Offensive and this does not seem to me unreasonable, particularly when there is often comparatively little written about many of the campaigns in English language histories. There are of course exceptions, where there is a lot written on some Soviet Operations which give us common names like that for the "Battle of Berlin".

mrg3105 has suggested that Prague Offensive be renamed to Prague Strategic Offensive Operation (see Talk:Prague Offensive#Prague Strategic Offensive Operation) and taking this as a test case I would appreciate it if other interested editors would voice their opinions on such a move on that talk page. --Philip Baird Shearer (talk) 08:54, 21 April 2008 (UTC)

I have put an RFC onto this issue please see Talk:Prague Offensive#RFC: renaming Prague Offensive to Strategic Offensive Operation and I think it would be a very good idea if more editors would enter the debate because at the moment a few editors are discussing whether to make changes that effect lots of articles. --Philip Baird Shearer (talk) 21:02, 26 April 2008 (UTC)

Further Reading/Bibliography

I'm sorry to bother you all again, but looking through various articles, such as Invasion of Normandy and Operation Market Garden I find myself confused. The former article lists the Bibliography and then Further Reading as something completely different, wheras the latter article only has References and no Bibliography. I'm rewriting Operation Varsity but frankly I'm now confused over the correct structure I should take in regards to the References section of it. I've currently edited it based on the Normandy article, but is that correct? Any help would be greatly appreciated! Skinny87 (talk) 11:32, 21 April 2008 (UTC)

'Further reading' sections are discouraged as they often turn into bookspam - just stick to referencing the sources you've actually used. The sections in the Normandy articles are a remnant of what these articles used to look like, and should be integrated or removed - especially the comments on the books! The Normandy articles aren't great examples to use as models by the way - the best military history articles (as measured by featured article/A-class status) are listed at Wikipedia:WikiProject_Military_history#Showcase. Hope that helps! --Nick Dowling (talk) 11:54, 21 April 2008 (UTC)
Thanks! I realize the Bibliography in the article may look like bookspam at the moment, but they're only there to remind me of which of my books I need to use for the article. As I make progress I'll whittle it down to those I've actually used. And thanks for deleting the trivia section - I wasn't sure about that to be honest. Skinny87 (talk) 13:04, 21 April 2008 (UTC)

I was also wondering what the guidelines were on Orders of Battle in articles. The previous editor of Operation Varsity has added one, but I'm unsure of whether they're actually required or vital - are they? Skinny87 (talk) 18:19, 21 April 2008 (UTC)

Not vital, but the more information the better - though only if sourced!! Buckshot06 (talk) 21:29, 21 April 2008 (UTC)
Personally, I like the Attack on Pearl Harbor approach, putting OOB on a separate page, with as much (well-sourced!) detail as possible. Trekphiler (talk) 23:45, 21 April & 23:49, 22 April 2008
I suggest puttting the citations (using {{reflist}}) in a ==Notes== or ==Footnotes== section and if a book is cited more than once put it in a ==References== section sorted by the family name of the author. If at the end of writing it there a no books in the References section then name the ==Notes== section ==References==. There is more information available in WP:CITE and WP:LAYOUT --Philip Baird Shearer (talk) 13:32, 22 April 2008 (UTC)

Peer review for HMS Liverpool (C11) now open

The peer review for HMS Liverpool (C11) is now open; all editors are invited to participate, and any input there would be appreciated! Thanks! Woody (talk) 12:50, 21 April 2008 (UTC)

Peer review for Brian Horrocks now open

The peer review for Brian Horrocks is now open; all editors are invited to participate, and any input there would be appreciated! Thanks! Woody (talk) 12:50, 21 April 2008 (UTC)

Peer review for Operation Varsity now open

The peer review for Operation Varsity is now open; all editors are invited to participate, and any input there would be appreciated! Thanks! Woody (talk) 19:47, 21 April 2008 (UTC)

What type of mortar is this?

Ok, I know you all love these games really, anyone know what type of mortar this is?

I took it at the Imperial War Museum, it was used by Argentina during the Falklands, I think it could either be a 60mm, 81mm or a 120mm. Ryan4314 (talk) 13:31, 22 April 2008 (UTC)

Marines, not Marine Regiment

In 1936 (or maybe '33, not quite sure), the USMC decided to stop calling their regiments regiments, instead labeling them 'Marines' e.g. 1st Marine regiment --> 1st Marines or 7th Marine Regiment --> 7th Marines. Remember when Chesty said "You're the 1st Marines! Not all the communists in hell can overrun you!" So why do people keep addressing them in articles as Marine Regiments? The only reason I can think of besides ignorance (NOT stupidity) is to make it more understandable to persons not well aquainted with the USMC. If this is the case, I don't support it, but I can at least understand it. All feedback is appreciated. --AtTheAbyss (talk) 14:30, 22 April 2008 (UTC)

  • Well, I imagine two things are true. First, the USMC website itself refers to them as the "1st Marine Regiment" and "2nd Marine Regiment" etc [3] so I guess that the authors are following the practice of the Marine Corps. Secondly, I imagine it's to clear up any confusion between regiments and divisions. For example, if you said to me: "1st Marines," I might think of the 1st Marine Division. If you identify each by their formation, it alleviates confusion. Just a thought, I don't actually know why. JEB90 (talk) 18:44, 22 April 2008 (UTC)
    • Either form is common when refering to individual regiments. Also, as a person that has contributed much of the information on those pages I am neither ignorant nor making it more "understandable" for the average reader. You are the one that is incorrect in this case. --Looper5920 (talk) 19:01, 22 April 2008 (UTC)
      • Really? I've never heard of a Marine regiment being referred to as a Marine Regiment, but if you can source it, I say go for it. I have multiple books saying I'm in the right, but if since there appear to be sources saying otherwise and the other way is more understandable to the average reader, I'll concede the point. Thanks for your guys'time. --AtTheAbyss (talk) 12:11, 24 April 2008 (UTC)

Edit war at Battle of Princeton

Hey. I just wanted to bring to this project's attention the edit war that's been going on at Battle of Princeton. Two editors have been going back and forth about the number of casualties and how many troops were initially involved. If someone here could take a look at the page, that'd be great. The discussion is at Talk:Battle of Princeton. Thanks. — HelloAnnyong (say whaaat?!) 02:36, 23 April 2008 (UTC)

Fighting over which unreferenced, amateur website to cite? Priceless! I encourage someone (with more patience than myself) to go over there and give some friendly advice about reliable sources, scholarly books, etc. As an increasingly hopeless curmudgeon, I have no time for people who write history articles using those kind of websites. ;-) —Kevin Myers 04:52, 23 April 2008 (UTC)
I wish I had said that differently—it sounds too much like Newbie biting. Many people start out on Wikipedia by using weak websites as sources—I certainly did. It takes awhile to learn what the better sources are and how to use them. —Kevin Myers 22:26, 23 April 2008 (UTC), the kindly curmudgeon.
Don't apologize, good sources are a necessity for anybody wanting to be taken seriously. My own view is, block 'em both & let Jimmy sort 'em out. Trekphiler (talk) 07:01, 25 April 2008 (UTC)

Naming issues on the article on the 1950's Chinese invasion of Tibet

Some time ago I requested a move from the then title of 'People's Liberation Army operations in Tibet (1950–1951)' to a title more compliant to Wikipedia naming policy. The naming issue was resolved somewhat irregularly, which I had tried to avoid as I anticipated pro-PRC editors continuing to attempt to obfuscate the name of the article, which they seem to be doing. This might benefit from some more experienced eyes on it. John Nevard (talk) 03:16, 23 April 2008 (UTC)

News! Tag & Assess 2008 is coming soon ...

Milhist's new drive – Tag & Assess 2008 – goes live on April 25 and you are cordially invited to participate. This time, the task is housekeeping. As ever, there are awards galore, plus there's a bit of friendly competition built-in, with a race for bronze, silver and gold wikis! You can sign up, in advance, here. I look forward to seeing you on the drive page! Good luck and happy tagging, --ROGER DAVIES talk 16:59, 23 April 2008 (UTC)

  • One Stripe (200 articles)
    One Stripe (200 articles)
  • Two Stripes (400 articles)
    Two Stripes (400 articles)
  • Three Stripes (600 articles)
    Three Stripes (600 articles)
  • Tireless Contributor Barnstar (1000 articles)
    Tireless Contributor Barnstar (1000 articles)
  • Chevrons (2000 articles)
    Chevrons (2000 articles)
  • Working Man's Barnstar (3000 articles)
    Working Man's Barnstar (3000 articles)
  • Barnstar of Diligence (4000 articles)
    Barnstar of Diligence (4000 articles)
  • Third place overall
    Third place overall
  • Second place overall
    Second place overall
  • First place overall
    First place overall

Peer review for Battle of the Afsluitdijk now open

The peer review for Battle of the Afsluitdijk is now open; all editors are invited to participate, and any input there would be appreciated! Thanks! Kirill 04:21, 24 April 2008 (UTC)

Is there an offensive confusion about offensive counter-air and such?

I was looking through the articles needing expert attention, and found Offensive counter air attack. With a fumbling of fingers on my keyboard, I lost it, searched, and found Offensive counter air. Both are stubs.

Some time ago, I found references to the terms and other related ones in various places, and thought they were inconsistent with one another. Next, I found an article aerial warfare, with its own approach, which struck me as more historical than doctrinal.

As Gene Wilder said in Blazing Saddles, "then we are awake. We are very confused." Mr. Wilder is entitled to the editorial "we", but I shall say that when I am confused about what I read, I may write until I have clarified that which confused me.

In my userspace, I wrote User:Hcberkowitz/Sandbox-AirCampaign, commenting "The Air Campaign is the title of COL John Warden's book, which may or may not be an appropriate title for the article, but gives the flavor. This article will start with principles of targeting (Warden's adaption of Clausewitz's centers of gravity), breakthrough technical advances (PGMs, ground control of PGM in close support, low observability, network, AESA), and then mission families (strike, offensive support to ground operations, counter-air, ISR, transport)."

Clearly, we do not need two almost identical stubs on offensive counter air. If others agree that aerial warfare is historical, do we need a general article on doctrine? If there is some consensus that is useful, I can move my sandbox draft to mainspace, work on it more in userspace, or forget the whole thing.

Suggestions?

Howard C. Berkowitz (talk) 06:18, 24 April 2008 (UTC)

I've put merge tags on the two stubs. OCA is a mission, not airpower in general, but you are correct in that there appears to be no discussion of airpower doctrine, per se (at least none I've found). Your draft is a mix of brief explanations of its practical development, recent theories, operations, and missions. Since those would perhaps best comprise several articles, I think it would be premature to deploy it to mainspace. Might I suggest the MILHIST and MILAIR Projects concerned work on a Series structure of articles related to airpower? A workspace subpage might be appended to the Aviation Task Force for developing a subject and categorization structure. Askari Mark (Talk) 18:25, 24 April 2008 (UTC)
I have a book somewhere on air base attacks--mrg3105 (comms) ♠♥♦♣ 14:13, 28 April 2008 (UTC)
There isn't a problem in finding material on OCA per se. The broader question is whether there should be a page about airpower doctrine, and if there are multiple editors interested in working on it. Howard C. Berkowitz (talk) 14:16, 28 April 2008 (UTC)
There seems to be a lot of misunderstanding about what airpower doctrine is or isn't, & what airpower is & isn't capable of. Aside the general reader, who could probably benefit, I'd be interested in a historical view of the doctrinal issues, if nothing else. (It bears mentioning how effective Strangle/Diadem was in Italy in '44, too, as described by Dupuy in Numbers, Predictions, & War.)
There's also been raised a "fighter tactics" issue, which could trace the influences of Boelcke, the Condor Legion, Chennault, Blesse, & the development of ACM & FWS, with reference to DACT & Aggressor ops. Trekphiler (talk) 16:21, 28 April 2008 (UTC)
I've been musing how far back that doctrine is affected by "disruptive" technologies. While precision guided munitions and unmanned aerial vehicles are major changes, one can go back to things like the interrupter that let fighters fire through their propeller arc. It could be argued, however, that there were periods of overpromising and underdelivering, such as Billy Mitchell's anti-shipping really not materializing until the German Fritz X guided bomb. In like manner, WWII strategic bombing certainly had effects, but not the Douhet-style total dominance. Howard C. Berkowitz (talk) 16:34, 28 April 2008 (UTC)

Young's Scouts

I've got a historian working on a history of this unit who can use better advice than I can give him. The thread is on my talk page, but please respond on his talk page. Thanks! Katr67 (talk) 23:14, 24 April 2008 (UTC)

Project tagging

Does anyone know if there are any guidelines for project tagging? I've seen a couple of articles tagged in the last couple of days that only have a fairly tangential relationship with their subject. Brian Horrocks was tagged for the Irish wikiproject (he was in Ireland during the Anglo-Irish war for a few months in the 1920s) and Montgomery was tagged for the LGBT project (there are allegations made by Nigel Hamilton, one of his biographers, that he was a repressed homosexual and some pretty vague stuff about a relationship with a swiss boy whom he alleges Montgomery was attracted to). We could end up with inumerable projects tagging some subjects. Horrocks could be tagged with France, Russia, Egypt, Libya, Tunisia, Belgium, Netherlands and Germany if we take it to extremes. Leithp 08:15, 25 April 2008 (UTC)

The only real guideline I'm aware of is each project's own definition of scope; I don't think there's anything beyond that currently around, and past efforts to centralize the idea haven't worked out very well. Kirill 08:19, 25 April 2008 (UTC)
I'm waiting for Horrocks to be tagged for WikiProject Film, for Edward Fox's portrayal in "A Bridge Too Far", myself. =] Trekphiler (talk) 09:58, 25 April 2008 (UTC)
Or WikiProject Politics for being Black Rod, or WikiProject Television for his tv presenting and The World at War, or WikiProject Literature for being an author.... Leithp 10:19, 25 April 2008 (UTC)

Peer review for Battle for the Hague now open

The peer review for Battle for the Hague is now open; all editors are invited to participate, and any input there would be appreciated! Thanks! Kirill 08:21, 25 April 2008 (UTC)

Mine-clearing line charge

Hi there

Just dropping a note that I've started a new stub. I am aware of other models than the US MICLIC, but I can't find any other articles here on WP. Perhaps those who are in the know can write/link these articles, and expand the stub. --Rifleman 82 (talk) 20:07, 25 April 2008 (UTC)

Request for fact checking

I am looking for someone to do a quick fact check on the WWII section of Bert Trautmann, an article about a man who served in the Luftwaffe during the Second World War, became a British PoW, and then proceeded to have a successful sporting career in England. I want to make sure no glaring errors about the events of the war are present, since my sources approach the subject from a sporting viewpoint, not a military one. Oldelpaso (talk) 19:20, 26 April 2008 (UTC)

Help needed on Turkish Invasion of Cyprus

This article is in a bad state, for such an important military event it is a shame it has been allowed to continue in this pov ridden state. I recently tried to start by rewriting the intro thinking it would serve as a good point to write the rest of the article, but this has been repeatedly reverted to the usual pov soapbox rant found in these types of conflicts. I would appreciate editors to weigh in and take a look at what I've written for themselves and leave a comment on the talk page. Thanks, --A.Garnet (talk) 17:15, 27 April 2008 (UTC)

I may be a relatively new editor, but I've posted on the talk page and hope to do all I can to help maintain NPOV! Skinny87 (talk) 18:33, 27 April 2008 (UTC)
You might want to add some NPOV sources like Security Council resolutions, reports of the Secretary-General, etc. If you can find the number (code) of the report or resolution, you can look google it up and may find it on http://www.undemocracy.com/. Civilaffairs (talk) 19:06, 27 April 2008 (UTC)Civilaffairs

Category:Massacres by Americans

A CFD is under way for Category:Massacres by Americans. The scope of the discussion is actually much broader, as it necessarily involves the question of whether to create a new category tree for "Massacres committed by country Xyz". Currently we have categories for "Massacres in country Xyz", which is, of course, quite different. Please join this very important discussion. Cgingold (talk) 01:57, 28 April 2008 (UTC)

AK-47 at FAR

AK-47 has been nominated for a featured article review. Articles are typically reviewed for two weeks. Please leave your comments and help us to return the article to featured quality. If concerns are not addressed during the review period, articles are moved onto the Featured Article Removal Candidates list for a further period, where editors may declare "Keep" or "Remove" the article from featured status. The instructions for the review process are here. Reviewers' concerns are here. -- Anonymous DissidentTalk 03:53, 28 April 2008 (UTC)

Unassessed Military History Articles

I hope I'm not doing anything wrong, but I have a little time to kill and I thought I'd review some of the Unassessed articles and rate them. I know I'm quite a new editor, but I think I'm assessing them correctly. I just assessed [4] and if that's been assessed wrongly, then please let me know!Skinny87 (talk) 10:06, 28 April 2008 (UTC)

Right, I've assessed about 60 or so, and I'll do some more later. Skinny87 (talk) 11:21, 28 April 2008 (UTC)
That looks great. Thanks for all your work! Woody (talk) 12:33, 28 April 2008 (UTC)
It does indeed. well done, --ROGER DAVIES talk 12:53, 28 April 2008 (UTC)
As a note, you might want to enter the B-Class checklist as well, though for stubs it isn't really worth filling it in. Woody (talk) 13:00, 28 April 2008 (UTC)
Righto, that's all but about half a dozen unassessed articles assessed. The only ones I've left are those which have been rated as B-Class by other projects, and I don't feel confident enough to go that far at the moment. Perhaps when I've had more experience. I wonder, would these count towards the Tag & Assess Drive at all? Skinny87 (talk) 13:36, 28 April 2008 (UTC)
The ones you've just done? How many were they, by the way? --ROGER DAVIES talk 13:46, 28 April 2008 (UTC)
Just went through contribs and it is 170. That sounds about right because last time I checked the cat last night it had 160. Woody (talk) 13:52, 28 April 2008 (UTC)
Wow, 170 of them. They were all a blur after a while :) Does that qualify me for anything under the Drive? Skinny87 (talk) 14:06, 28 April 2008 (UTC)
Make that 171, just did another unassessed that had popped up. Skinny87 (talk) 14:08, 28 April 2008 (UTC) (174 now) Skinny87 (talk)
I would have thought that crediting 171 articles to your drive tally would be entirely appropriate :) --ROGER DAVIES talk 17:17, 28 April 2008 (UTC)
Thanks! Now, I hate to be a pain...but how would I do that? :) My count is up to 175 now! Skinny87 (talk) 18:19, 28 April 2008 (UTC)
First, you've got to sign up for Tag & Assess 2008. Then, in the participants list, you add your name plus 175 as your tally. Next, you sign up for a worklist and get beavering :) Simple, --ROGER DAVIES talk 18:23, 28 April 2008 (UTC)
Oh, and if you have any queries about the instructions, just ask on my talk page or on the drive talk page --ROGER DAVIES talk 18:26, 28 April 2008 (UTC)
Thanks, I just signed up and added my tally. Just one more thing: I'll continue to assess unassesssed articles as they appear, so can I add them to my tally still, as I have done? Skinny87 (talk) 18:29, 28 April 2008 (UTC)
To be honest, I'd rather you didn't as it gets complicated. If people do a real load in one go though that's a different story.--ROGER DAVIES talk 18:33, 28 April 2008 (UTC)
Gotcha, I won't add them onto my tally. Thanks for all the help, that should be all now. Skinny87 (talk) 18:39, 28 April 2008 (UTC)

(od)Skinny87, if you've ever got time on your hands and are looking for things to do, consider Category:Military history articles with no associated task force. There are over 11,500 articles in that category and it's going to take all hands to the plow to put them in the right places...! Buckshot06 (talk) 03:16, 29 April 2008 (UTC)

Indeed, though many of them are already in the Tag & Assess 2008 worklists and more will be added there as new T&A worklists are created. --ROGER DAVIES talk 03:29, 29 April 2008 (UTC)

RfC on missilry

There is an open RfC on the naming of missile and rocket articles at Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Rocketry/Titles 70.55.84.13 (talk) 05:20, 29 April 2008 (UTC)

Peer review for Battle of Verrières Ridge now open

The peer review for Battle of Verrières Ridge is now open; all editors are invited to participate, and any input there would be appreciated! Thanks! Kirill (P) 05:56, 29 April 2008 (UTC)


A-Class review for Battle of the Kalka River now open

The A-Class review for Battle of the Kalka River is now open; all editors are invited to participate, and any input there would be appreciated! Thanks! Kyriakos (talk) 07:42, 1 May 2008 (UTC)


A-Class review for Erich Hartmann now open

The A-Class review for Erich Hartmann is now open; all editors are invited to participate, and any input there would be appreciated! Thanks! Woody (talk) 19:53, 2 May 2008 (UTC)


A-Class review for Erich Hartmann needs attention

A few more editors are needed to complete the A-Class review for Erich Hartmann; please stop by and help review the article! Thanks! Kirill (prof) 17:40, 4 May 2008 (UTC)

A-Class review for Battle of the Kalka River needs attention

A few more editors are needed to complete the A-Class review for Battle of the Kalka River; please stop by and help review the article! Thanks! Kirill (prof) 17:40, 4 May 2008 (UTC)

A-Class review for Battle of Marion now open

The A-Class review for Battle of Marion is now open; all editors are invited to participate, and any input there would be appreciated! Thanks! Kirill (prof) 23:11, 4 May 2008 (UTC)

A-Class review for Battle of Appomattox Station now open

The A-Class review for Battle of Appomattox Station is now open; all editors are invited to participate, and any input there would be appreciated! Thanks! Kirill (prof) 23:11, 4 May 2008 (UTC)


A-Class review for HMS Ark Royal (91) now open

The A-Class review for HMS Ark Royal (91) is now open; all editors are invited to participate, and any input there would be appreciated! Thanks! Kirill (prof) 01:48, 8 May 2008 (UTC)


Peer review for Paul Nobuo Tatsuguchi now open

The peer review for Paul Nobuo Tatsuguchi is now open; all editors are invited to participate, and any input there would be appreciated! Thanks! Kirill (prof) 12:54, 8 May 2008 (UTC)

A-Class review for Brian Horrocks now open

The A-Class review for Brian Horrocks is now open; all editors are invited to participate, and any input there would be appreciated! Thanks! Kirill (prof) 12:54, 8 May 2008 (UTC)

A-Class review for Paul Nobuo Tatsuguchi needs attention

A few more editors are needed to complete the A-Class review for Paul Nobuo Tatsuguchi; please stop by and help review the article! Thanks! Kirill (prof) 02:26, 12 May 2008 (UTC)

This article urgently needs reviewers. Please help, --ROGER DAVIES talk 14:39, 12 May 2008 (UTC)
Promoted, --ROGER DAVIES talk 16:56, 12 May 2008 (UTC)

WWII Western Front Info boxes

As it stands there are currently 3 different info boxes which cover this period:

Well it just seems a bit too much and they all seem to overlap, am sure these could be cut down to one or two infoboxes. Any views on this?--EnigmaMcmxc (talk) 07:30, 22 April 2008 (UTC)

I created the latter two, with "Central Europe" (like Operation Overlord) being a sub-set of "Western Europe (1944-1945)". The first box I think we can do without, as, IMO, it's rather helter-skelter. That said, they look like they've been modified extensively since I worked on them and definitely need some clean-up. Oberiko (talk) 17:25, 29 April 2008 (UTC)

British Army Brigade Names

The MOD web site for all its faults does name its Brigades as follows:

4th Mechanized Brigade

1 Mechanised Brigade

12 Mechanised Brigade


My question is do we follow suit ?

have MECHANIZED & MECHANISED - 4th with TH and 1 and 12 without the ST & TH JS1 (talk) 14:31, 28 April 2008 (UTC)

No. The website is not an authorative source for that. --ROGER DAVIES talk 14:58, 28 April 2008 (UTC)
FWIW Hansard has 12 with a "z", but it also mentions 7th Amoured... and 7 Armoured... GraemeLeggett (talk) 15:21, 28 April 2008 (UTC)
Nothing like unanimity on it, huh? =] And they don't even have 6000 kinds of cheese. Trekphiler (talk) 15:45, 28 April 2008 (UTC)
What used to be Joint Service Publication 101 is the Service Writing Handbook which states that speeling should be taken from the first variant entry in the Oxford English Dictionary. Regrettably many of the first speelings in the OED are americanised so technically the z usage is correct. However JSP101 also states that the guidance should not get in the way of common sense and pragmatic use of language is to be encouraged, so the s usage is correct as that is the the extant British usage.
Can't say for sure what the said formations use themselves, as in planning documents it's normally abbreviated to Mech Bde.
ALR (talk) 08:44, 29 April 2008 (UTC)
ise vs ize here on wikipedia says both are legitimate for BE where a Greek root is involved. GraemeLeggett (talk) 09:26, 29 April 2008 (UTC)

National service#National service in the United Kingdom & Bevin Boys

I have proposed that the National Service section on the United Kingdom be separated, and a dedicated page be created similar to the National Service in Singapore. There has also been a suggestion to incorporate the Bevin Boys into this new page as well. Any comments would be greatly appreciated.--Rockybiggs (talk) 09:33, 29 April 2008 (UTC)

I believe we should include the Bevin Boys , they had no choice in the matter it was either the Armed Forces or the mines depending on what their call up numbers were. They are also to be honoured with a vetrans badge by HM Gov.JS1 (talk) 11:07, 29 April 2008 (UTC)

A category and maybe general article needed for PX, NAAFi and (DefCom)?

Hi

There is a deletion discussion on the military shopping privileges scheme for Australian defence force members (DefCom Australia). In looking at the articles on the US scheme , Base exchange, and the similar Navy, Army and Air Force Institutes I notice that there is no category that covers these in a general sense and nor does there seem to be a category or article that talks about remuneration. The closest I can get is Category:Military life and perhaps the stub Personal financial benefits of military service. I suspect the latter is worth expanding. Any comments about the category and applying it to the articles mentioned - or should there be a sub cat or should they be in Category:Military Pay and perhaps should that perhaps be Category:Military pay and benefits ?--Matilda talk 23:58, 30 April 2008 (UTC)

Perhaps it just me but I cant see the connection with a loyalty card scheme and the British NAAFI and American Base exchange, the latter two are specialised retail distribution for the military with complex distribution systems on bases and at forward operating locations. MilborneOne (talk) 19:05, 2 May 2008 (UTC)

63rd Infantry Division (United States)

An editor just dumped a bunch of material in there and it needs checking out. Thanks. CambridgeBayWeather Have a gorilla 02:47, 1 May 2008 (UTC)

Requesting MILHIST article move

It has been proposed that 1983 nuclear war scare be moved back to Able Archer 83. All editers are invited to participate in the discussion on this matter on the talk page for 1983 nulcear war scare. TomStar81 (Talk) 18:27, 1 May 2008 (UTC)

Dutch Acadie/Acadia: Did it ever exist?

I'm looking for a specialist opinion on whether Dutch Acadie is a correct article. Serious concerns have been raised about its factual accuracy, and therefore I would appreciate opinions on the subject. Thank you, PeterSymonds | talk 23:23, 1 May 2008 (UTC)

There is only one person who for some unknown reason believes this article in not accurate. In fact, he thinks the action and the "colony" are not important enough for an article, that was clearly not true on the Dutch wikipedia. Here are some of my references. http://doucetfamily.org/heritage/Treaty.htm
http://www.acadian-cajun.com/acadia3.htm
http://doucetfamily.org/heritage/Dates.htm
http://books.google.com/books?id=w4IBAAAAMAAJ&pg=PA127&lpg=PA127&dq=dutch+conquest+of+acadie&source=web&ots=zjDvps52MG&sig=rRkT2y5TLm3Oaru_ACo2o1OtSmM&hl=en#PPA127,M1 (Red4tribe (talk) 00:27, 2 May 2008 (UTC))

What the question is here is what consitutes a colony. The agrument that no one has yet to agree with Red4tribe with (contray to his opinion, chech it out for yourself

[5] and [6]. Every link clearly states that the dutch attacked two forts in the entire colony of Acadia, which I would like to add represented a small fraction of the colony, took them over, claimed Acadia as theres then abandon the forts in little under 6 weeks because of an unability to defend them. They later conceded any claims to Acadia in a further treaty. Basically to be the idea that taking over two forts, claiming a the whole colony, including Cape Breton by the way, which had the french's major fort, Louisburg, and was almost 800 km from the action, then leaving without even trying to settle, kinda means you give up claims to that region. This article, and this person, claim that Acadia at some point was taken over or conceded to the Dutch, when this is clearly far from teh case. Regardless of our constant questioning and my begging for a valid precedent so we can have a discussion he stopped talking about this in the discussions of the Dutch Empire and created a wikipedia article of its own, even though there is a Dutch Colonys in the amercans article. His insistance on using questionable sources that tend to favour my agrument on inspection coupled with his refusing to accept that Wikipedia isn't to present what you believe should be included but what a collection of people can an understanding from have driven me half mad trying to explain to him. Also, when I illusitrate a flaw in any agrument, I get accused of "dodging" the question... its gone in circles. Please, someone weight in althought I doubt it will influence him.-Kirkoconnell (talk) 03:07, 2 May 2008 (UTC)

The brief, opportunistic occupation of two small French forts in Acadia during 1674–1676 comprised a military “incident” during the Franco-Dutch War of 1672–1678, rather than an act of colonization per se, despite a retroactive and never-realized claim laid by the Dutch West India Company. As such, it deserves mention – albeit brief mention – in articles related to the Dutch colonial era in North America and the Franco-Dutch War. Inasmuch as Wikipedia is not paper, it’s sufficiently historical for a brief article and there are adequate reliable sources for doing so. However, while it may serve as a "correct article", there is a very strong question regarding the appropriateness of “Dutch Acadie” as an appropriate name for the article; “Dutch attacks in French Acadia” or something along that line would be more accurate. The Dutch captain who conducted the seizures declared the annexation of all of Arcadia based on the taking of only one small fort and, as the lone image in the article indicates, he declared its name to be “Nova Hollandia” and Cornelius Van Steenwyk would receive the empty title of Governor of the “coasts and countries of Nova Scotia and Acadie”. Askari Mark (Talk) 04:41, 2 May 2008 (UTC)
The article is about the two forts being attacked, and taken under Dutch control, een if only briefly. If the name should be changed to something else like "Dutch attacks in North America During the Franco-Dutch War" or something along those lines, I don't believe that is needed but it is more reasonable then just deleting the whole article. (Red4tribe (talk) 11:05, 2 May 2008 (UTC))
Here's an idea, why don't we include the information in the Dutch colonies of North America article? oh wait, it is already there....-Kirkoconnell (talk) 12:24, 2 May 2008 (UTC)

This is much more detailed. You can continue to deny the fact and say they were never there but it isn't going to make it true. (Red4tribe (talk) 20:34, 2 May 2008 (UTC))

I have listed Dutch Acadie for deletion. WP:OR at its finest. The Red Hat of Pat Ferrick t 23:32, 2 May 2008 (UTC)

Or worstest :P-Kirkoconnell (talk) 02:55, 3 May 2008 (UTC)

Operation Energize Task Forces

As you know, this wikiproject has nearly fifty task forces. While some are very active, others are very small and sleepy. The coordinators have been discussing ways of making them more effective.

The basic idea is that coordinators will "adopt" task forces with a view to helping them take on new initiatives and responsibilities though it will be left entirely to members of individual task forces to decide what to do. These include:

  • Task force portals

The idea here is to create and develop task force portals. These are not hugely time-consuming and provide a visible task force presence.

  • Recruitment drives

some ideas here include (1) inviting TF members to introduce a wiki-friend from outside Milhist and (2) putting messages/reminders in on the talk pages of related wikiprojects (ie French TF in Wikiproject France etc).

  • Old TF-related featured articles

We have about twenty old FAs (they're commented out in the Wikipedia:WikiProject Military history#Showcase) with citation (and other) problems. One proposal was a task force-based drive to improve them.

  • TF article improvement drives

This involves TF members selecting articles within the TF's scope to take to A or FA standard.

  • "To do" box monitoring

This involves monitoring progress monthly by updating the task force's to-do box.

  • Reducing the "Articles needing attention" lists.

This is aimed at reducing Milhist backlogs. By handling articles needing graphics or copyediting or whatever at task force level, we make this easier - and less daunting - to manage. The idea is also to invite specific editors with specialist skills to work on specific aspects of named articles.

As a first step, the following coordinators have "adopted" the following task forces.

--ROGER DAVIES talk 10:16, 2 May 2008 (UTC)


Coordinator Task force/s
Blnguyen (talk) Southeast Asian military history
Eurocopter tigre (talk) Military aviation • National militaries • Weaponry • British military history • French military history • Italian military history • Middle Eastern military history • Polish military history • Romanian military history • Russian and Soviet military history • Napoleonic era • World War I • World War II
Kirill Lokshin (talk) Balkan military history • British military history • French military history • Italian military history • Spanish military history • Medieval warfare • Early Modern warfare • American Revolutionary War • Napoleonic era
Kyriakos (talk) Balkan military history • Baltic states military history • Nordic military history • Ottoman military history • Polish military history • Russian and Soviet military history • Spanish military history • Classical warfare • Medieval warfare • Early Muslim military history • Crusades • Early Modern warfare
Nick Dowling (talk) Intelligence • Military aviation • Military historiography • Military science • National militaries • Australian military history • British military history • Japanese military history • New Zealand military history • United States military history • Early Modern warfare • World War II
Roger Davies (talk) Fortifications • Military biography • Military memorials and cemeteries • War films • Indian military history • Middle Eastern military history • Ottoman military history • Southeast Asian military history • Early Muslim military history • American Civil War
TomStar81 (talk) Maritime warfare • Canadian military history • German military history • Russian and Soviet military history • United States military history • American Revolutionary War • American Civil War • World War II
Wandalstouring (talk) Military technology and engineering • Weaponry • African military history • Chinese military history • Dutch military history • German military history • Korean military history • South American military history • Taiwanese military history • Classical warfare • Medieval warfare • Early Muslim military history • Crusades • Napoleonic era • World War I
Woody (talk) Fortifications • Maritime warfare • Military biography • Military historiography • Military memorials and cemeteries • National militaries • War films • Weaponry • Canadian military history • Dutch military history • World War I

Peer review for 36th Engineer Brigade (United States) now open

The peer review for 36th Engineer Brigade (United States) is now open; all editors are invited to participate, and any input there would be appreciated! Thanks! Kirill (prof) 13:11, 2 May 2008 (UTC)

Peer review for 15th Sustainment Brigade (United States) now open

The peer review for 15th Sustainment Brigade (United States) is now open; all editors are invited to participate, and any input there would be appreciated! Thanks!} Kirill (prof) 13:11, 2 May 2008 (UTC)

Puppet show at Monty

There is an on-going problem at Bernard Montgomery, 1st Viscount Montgomery of Alamein, an editor is continually creating sockpuppets to insert contentious material regarding Montgomery's relationship with a child into the article. The editor in question seems to be DavidYork71 (talk · contribs), a previously banned editor. Extra eyes would be appreciated. Leithp 13:24, 2 May 2008 (UTC)

Peer review for John Emilius Fauquier now open

The peer review for John Emilius Fauquier is now open; all editors are invited to participate, and any input there would be appreciated! Thanks! Kirill (prof) 01:05, 3 May 2008 (UTC)

flag icon reverts

Numerous reverts of French flag icons in this Battle of Fontenoy and other articles of the period. Can someone intervene?Tttom1 (talk) 02:38, 3 May 2008 (UTC)

I don't know why on earth these darn flags are not banned from infoboxes. They cause far more trouble than they are worth.Rebel Redcoat (talk) 17:18, 3 May 2008 (UTC)

Requested assistance

Hello.

I think the WWII article is close to being ready for FA-submission, but I've stumbled into some writers block and am having difficulty with the last bit. Could some willing writer take a look at World War II/temp and help me finish the last sub-section "Advances in technology and warfare"? Oberiko (talk) 16:48, 4 May 2008 (UTC)

A-Class reviews - some changes

After lengthy discussions, the coordinators have decided that the usual four-day review period for A-Class reviews may be extended by up to three days (ie up to seven days in total) in the following circumstances:

  1. the article has no opposes but has insufficient support for promotion or
  2. the article's nominator requests more time to resolve matters arising during the review.

The full text is here. --ROGER DAVIES talk 18:33, 5 May 2008 (UTC)

Peer review for Underground nuclear testing now open

The peer review for Underground nuclear testing is now open; all editors are invited to participate, and any input there would be appreciated! Thanks! Kirill (prof) 00:45, 6 May 2008 (UTC)

Battle of Memel

Since I do not have time for what Philip seems to think is "a game of consensus", I would like to ask him to support his repeated reversions of moves with some evidence of the name "Battle of Memel" in any language; I'll help with German - Einschließung Memels (Oktober 1944 bis Januar 1945)

I post here so as "to draw in a larger group of editors" on Philips' advice, and will wait while he searches for the source in English for the "Battle of Memel" although "Geographic battle names do not need a source" according to him

I will also point out, as the German name suggests, in order there to have been a "battle", at least one side had to be on the offensive, and the German troops were not--mrg3105 (comms) ♠♥♦♣ 09:16, 3 May 2008 (UTC)

There is no source for the title 'Battle of Memel'. Having read the original (very sketchy) article before I extensively rewrote and expanded it, I suspect that the article's original creator probably read about the blockade of the town in The Forgotten Soldier and created an article called 'Battle of Memel' for want of finding anything else to call it.
Note; even The Forgotten Soldier (which may actually be fiction, in any case) doesn't call it The Battle of Memel. No-one does. The Germans referred to the 'Memel Bridgehead', but even then it should be pointed out that the full article is about an action of much wider scope. Esdrasbarnevelt (talk) 11:48, 6 May 2008 (UTC)

Vandal

[7] has been repeatedly vandalising airborne-related articles, although bizarrely only ever to enter fictional cmpaigns into infoboxes or assertions that airborne divisions participated in campaigns that they did not. Can something be done about them? I'm afraid I have no idea what to do, alhtough I do try and repair whatever vandalism they do. Thanks Skinny87 (talk) 23:23, 4 May 2008 (UTC)

Warn the editor once, then, if they do it again, report it here. Cla68 (talk) 01:07, 7 May 2008 (UTC)

RfD nomination of Template:FalklandsWarProj

I have nominated Template:FalklandsWarProj (edit | talk | history | links | watch | logs) for discussion. Please participate in the discussion by adding your comments at the discussion page. Thank you. -MBK004 23:44, 6 May 2008 (UTC)

2 misc items

  • Jones (surname) lists Reginald Victor Jones (English physicist and scientific military intelligence expert, head of British Scientific Intelligence during World War II) under the category "Armed forces". As I understand it, Jones served as a civilian throughout the war and thereafter. What is WikiProject Military history's view on civilians being listed as members of armed forces?
  • Interception (disambiguation) does not mention military sense of the word, e.g. Interceptor aircraft

(Please note that I am unable to contribute anything useful to these myself.) -- Writtenonsand (talk) 15:07, 7 May 2008 (UTC)

Yes, Jones was a civil servant, I've moved him to the Science caegory on that page, as he was Professor of Natural Philosophy at Aberdeen after his wartime role. David Underdown (talk) 15:25, 7 May 2008 (UTC)
Whilst that's probably a fair way to resolve the specific issue there is probably a more general point about how to deal with Civil Serpents when engaged in defence related work. Under the current Defence Intelligence structure the Deputy Chief of Defence Intelligence, head of the assessment staff is usually SCS whereas Director General Intelligence Collection is generally a uniformed post. The current incumbent would only really fit into an AF/ defence heading. Similarly the use of civilians in the deployed environment is now significant and the same principl applies.
Do we have any clarity around how to handle CS in a military environment?
ALR (talk) 15:42, 7 May 2008 (UTC)
A heading like "Defence2 would probably work, , by definition they are not actually armed forces personnel. David Underdown (talk) 17:44, 7 May 2008 (UTC)

Peer review for USS Missouri (BB-63) now open

The peer review for USS Missouri (BB-63) is now open; all editors are invited to participate, and any input there would be appreciated! Thanks! TomStar81 (Talk) 02:50, 8 May 2008 (UTC)

Peer review for United States Special Operations Command now open

The peer review for United States Special Operations Command is now open; all editors are invited to participate, and any input there would be appreciated! Thanks! Kirill (prof) 12:54, 8 May 2008 (UTC)

Victory in Europe Day

Hi guys,

I just wanted to give you all a warning that Victory in Europe Day has been linked on Fark.com's main page. I've already added the high-traffic tag to the talk page, but expect a lot of vandalism today. - JPINFV (talk) 14:47, 8 May 2008 (UTC)

Thank you very much for letting us know, --ROGER DAVIES talk 14:49, 8 May 2008 (UTC)

A-Class review for Paul Nobuo Tatsuguchi now open

The A-Class review for Paul Nobuo Tatsuguchi is now open; all editors are invited to participate, and any input there would be appreciated! Thanks! Kirill (prof) 01:38, 9 May 2008 (UTC)

Requested move

Forţele Aeriene Regale ale României → Royal Romanian Air Force —(Discuss)— as per Use English for organisations with established English names --mrg3105 (comms) ♠♥♦♣ 23:21, 3 May 2008 (UTC)

Support, but I think you need to take it up to WP:Naming. Oberiko (talk) 16:48, 4 May 2008 (UTC)
Looks sensible to me, and no-one has objected on the article's talk page. Do you need an admin's help to make this move by deleting a redirect article? --Nick Dowling (talk) 12:01, 6 May 2008 (UTC)
Seems to be ok thanks Nick--mrg3105 (comms) ♠♥♦♣ 21:47, 9 May 2008 (UTC)

Template problems

Project banner breaks on class=start

{{WPMILHIST}} breaks if given a class=start parameter.

See Template talk:WPMILHIST#Start_scrambles_banner.3F

--BrownHairedGirl (talk) • (contribs) 22:00, 9 May 2008 (UTC)


Problem with WikiProject Military history tag used on Sampson class destroyer talk pages

I was updating information on this class of ship and I noticed that your project tag isn't displaying properly on the talk pages for the individual ships of this class (USS Sampson, USS Rowan etc.) Shinerunner (talk) 22:05, 9 May 2008 (UTC)

This is the same problem as the above section. Will somebody please alert our Template Troops? (over at the Russian TF, these are the Troops of Template Designation) Buckshot06 (talk) 22:56, 9 May 2008 (UTC)


Possible template error

Can someone check at Talk:Yamato class battleship. Somehow our template is malformed and the two of the projects aren't showing up. I'm oblivious to what seems to be wrong. -MBK004 23:01, 9 May 2008 (UTC)

I opened the talk page and resaved the data and the template now works properly. --ROGER DAVIES talk 04:14, 10 May 2008 (UTC)


Size of templates

After trying for 45 minutes to get our template added to the World in COnflict page I finally gave up, it is showing up as hugely malformed. Can someone please figure out how to fix it? TomStar81 (Talk) 23:13, 9 May 2008 (UTC)

Yep, that's the same problem I've reported just above relating to the Yamato class. -MBK004 23:37, 9 May 2008 (UTC)
I've just added the template to Talk:World in Conflict without any problems, so crisis over, I think. --ROGER DAVIES talk 04:14, 10 May 2008 (UTC)


Answer

Somebody decided to drop the permitted node count down by a factor of 20, breaking all the sub-template transclusions used in the Start-Class version. It's been fixed now, apparently. Kirill (prof) 00:12, 10 May 2008 (UTC)

A problem still exists on Talk:Yamato class battleship. It may be another problem. -MBK004 00:16, 10 May 2008 (UTC)
I can't see anything unusual about it; have you tried clearing your cache? Kirill (prof) 00:24, 10 May 2008 (UTC)
Yep, I've done that three times. Problem still evident for me. -MBK004 00:31, 10 May 2008 (UTC)
Seems resolved now, MBK, see above. --ROGER DAVIES talk 04:14, 10 May 2008 (UTC)

WWI photo needing some clarification

This photo, Image:German advance (1914).jpg, is currently being used on two articles, Battle of St. Quentin (1914) and Great Retreat, with the figures being identified as British in one and German in the other. Kirill, who uploaded it, says the figures were identified as German on the website he found it. However, to my very untrained eye, they look more like British uniforms. Can anyone shed some light on this? Leithp 14:36, 6 May 2008 (UTC)

I'd guess UK infantry, judging by their regulation service caps, with wider crowns than found on German cloth caps, and their Lee-Enfield rifles, with that weapon's distinctive thick forend and almost-straight (minimal pistol grip) stock, both of which produce a profile clearly different from the standard German Mauser infantry rifle, or Gew. 98. Jack Bethune (talk) 22:45, 6 May 2008 (UTC)
The only copy of it I have found is in Military Handbooks' World War I Day By Day (1999) where it is used to illustrate the "Race to the Sea" period. The caption is "British infantry move north in the attempt to attack the open right flank of the German forces on the Western Front." The photo credit is "Imperial War Museum" but I can't find it in their collection search (no surprise there). Also the photo as it appears here is about 20% of the actual photo -- there are about 35 soldiers in a file in the full image. 59.167.163.229 (talk) 06:47, 7 May 2008 (UTC)
They look like British soldiers to me. Nick Dowling (talk) 11:47, 7 May 2008 (UTC)
Have to agree with the others. Most definatly British. Narson (talk) 11:57, 7 May 2008 (UTC)

I've changed the commons page and the caption to say that it shows British troops. Leithp 07:13, 8 May 2008 (UTC)

Not to put too fine a point on it, but wouldn't it be more accurate to refer to these men as UK troops, possibly originating from England, Ireland, Scotland, or Wales? During WWI, men from these four countries apparently wore about the same uniform seen in this photo. Jack Bethune (talk) 12:15, 8 May 2008 (UTC)
All those are constituent nationalities of the British Army, so British troops is accurate. I could see your point if I had identified them as English, but I didn't. As a Scot, I like to give people the benefit of the doubt and assume they aren't English unless the evidence points otherwise.Joke! Leithp 12:22, 8 May 2008 (UTC)
To put an even finer point could they be non-British Commonwealth troops? (possibly Canadian or Australian)Nigel Ish (talk) 08:15, 11 May 2008 (UTC)
I don't that believe either Canadian or Australian forces had arrived on the Western Front by that time, though I may be wrong. Leithp 16:15, 11 May 2008 (UTC)

Help Needed

Main Agency of Automobiles and Tanks of the Ministry of Defense of the Soviet Union , this Articlde is included in a section I am doing for TAG & ASSESS 2008.

Apart from the never ending name its rated as start but there is very little content and I was going to re-assess as a stub. I do not believe that even with a lot of work it would ever be anything more then start class, so I started thinking could it merge with another Article? I tried to locate a Russian MOD Article to see if it was suitable but with no success at present. Any Suggestions. Jim Sweeney (talk) 09:21, 9 May 2008 (UTC)

It's not really a merge target. The page includes a link to a Russian page with the directorate's history which no doubt will eventually be translated. At Russian Ministry of Defence#Composition I've just finished copying over an outline structure of the MoD which places GABTU, which is it's short form title, within the structure. For interest's sake, compare United States Department of Defence#Composition and some of the articles with long titles that are very stubby there, Under Secretary of Defense for Acquisition, Technology and Logistics for example. Buckshot06 (talk) 19:27, 9 May 2008 (UTC)
Thanks for the advice Jim Sweeney (talk) 09:01, 11 May 2008 (UTC)

Peer review for Late Roman army now open

The peer review for Late Roman army is now open; all editors are invited to participate, and any input there would be appreciated! Thanks! Kirill (prof) 16:55, 10 May 2008 (UTC)

Notability

I was searching through projects that have articles tagged for notability, specifically articles related to Mexico. I noticed during this search that the Military History project had numerous articles on munitions as tagged for notability. Can I remove these tags or is each piece of equipment need to show a cause for notability, and what is a basic understanding of what is notable in that regard? --I Write Stuff (talk) 23:40, 10 May 2008 (UTC)

I think that, with regards to munitions, the amo used is covered in articles related to the gun in question, unless the ammo is a missile or something of that nature. I could be wrong abouit that though. Can you provide some examples for clarification? TomStar81 (Talk) 01:11, 11 May 2008 (UTC)
My terminology is incorrect. The munition/ordinance in question was a land mine: FMK-3 mine. The full list is here, I was going to clean out the weapons if permitted. --I Write Stuff (talk) 01:49, 11 May 2008 (UTC)

Reviewers urgently needed at FAC

The featured article process is currently very short of reviewers. The process is about consensus – not !voting – and "drive-by" reviews that simply say oppose or support are not given much weight. Instead, reviews should be brief critiques, focusing on article strengths and weaknesses.

In particular, the following articles, within our scope, need review:

Thank you in advance, --ROGER DAVIES talk 07:17, 11 May 2008 (UTC)

List of military controversies

I just stumbled across this rather odd article which is presently a grab bag of distasteful incidents in military history (loosely defined). The article contains examples as diverse as the Battle of Teutoburg Forest (which, we're informed, would be a considered a war crime today, but was normal for warfare of the time) and the Basra prison incident together with a few decidedly uncontroversial atrocities with limited military involvement such as The Holocaust and The Killing Fields (where's the controversy here? - almost every sane person agrees that these were terrible crimes). Does anyone think that this is salvageable? Nick Dowling (talk) 08:45, 11 May 2008 (UTC)

Not salvageable. Very strange. Virtually no refs, probably OR, and a highly idiosyncratic choice. WP:XfD? --ROGER DAVIES talk
Bloody Roman war criminals! Hang the lot of them! I agree, bin it. Looking in the discussion area there are the following "to be added": Rawanda, Darfur, Genocides in history etc along with a bunch of other entries in the article itself it is mixing actual controversial actions with actual crimes as Nick as pointed out, where there is no controversy. There is also two articles which cover these areas: List of War Crimes and Genocides in history. I also think the ending of the opening is a bit of reverse psychology "No judgement should be implied." yet it then lumps legitimate actions with actual war crimes and genocides - Very dodgy.--EnigmaMcmxc (talk) 13:50, 11 May 2008 (UTC)
I would say get rid of it. A terrible title that is way to vague and could possibly contain almost every military action in history. --Looper5920 (talk) 14:03, 11 May 2008 (UTC)
Seems like unreferenced POV/OR made by mainly one user, I goddam hate POV/OR, we must hunt it down and destroy it in a totally controversial way! Plz put a link here if you nominate this for AFD. Ryan4314 (talk) 16:22, 11 May 2008 (UTC)
I filed the afd for the article. Feel free to comment there. TomStar81 (Talk) 19:32, 11 May 2008 (UTC)
Thanks Tom. The AfD looks like a candidate for a speedy delete under WP:SNOW to me if an uninvolved admin wants to pull the trigger on this. Nick Dowling (talk) 08:20, 12 May 2008 (UTC)

Campaign boxes

There is some tautology between Rome against the Alamanni and the Roman-Alamannic Wars in Germanic Wars. Any fixing? --Brand спойт 12:22, 11 May 2008 (UTC)

Battle of Waterloo for featured article

I recently nominated the Battle of Waterloo article for featured article status. We received generally positive reviews, but quite a lot of comments which weren't addressed within a week, and the nomination was archived. Another issue was that there weren't enough reviewers prepared to trawl through an article of that length and depth to review it.

So,

  1. Would anyone be willing to help out with addressing the comments? In particular, a copyedit for eloquence was requested, especially to the lead. (There is a worklist up on the article talk page.)
  2. Could interested members of the taskforce stand ready to engage in the FA review when we re-nominate?

-Kieran (talk) 20:27, 11 May 2008 (UTC)

Peer review for 17th Airborne Division (United States) now open

The peer review for 17th Airborne Division (United States) is now open; all editors are invited to participate, and any input there would be appreciated!--ROGER DAVIES talk 22:41, 11 May 2008 (UTC)

Theodore Roosevelt FAR

Theodore Roosevelt has been nominated for a featured article review. Articles are typically reviewed for two weeks. Please leave your comments and help us to return the article to featured quality. If concerns are not addressed during the review period, articles are moved onto the Featured Article Removal Candidates list for a further period, where editors may declare "Keep" or "Remove" the article from featured status. The instructions for the review process are here. Reviewers' concerns are here.--TonyTheTiger (t/c/bio/WP:CHICAGO/WP:LOTM) 02:31, 12 May 2008 (UTC)

A-Class review for Kenneth Dewar now open

The A-Class review for Kenneth Dewar is now open; all editors are invited to participate, and any input there would be appreciated! Thanks! --ROGER DAVIES talk 14:10, 12 May 2008 (UTC)

Battle of the Bulge

Battle of the Bulge is indicated as being a Featured Article, but to be honest I wouldn't even put it at GA Status. Entire sections are completely without references, there is a large Popular Culture section, and it needs a good copyedit. I hope I'm not being too presumptious by asking how the article could be downgraded? I certainly want to work on it and get it back up to FA status, but in its present condition to label it as so is just not right. Skinny87 (talk) 17:34, 12 May 2008 (UTC)

Yep, that article is distinctly lacking in citations, that is why it is commented out on the project showcase and is listed at Wikipedia:Featured articles with citation problems. This is primarily because the criteria for featured articles were very different when this article was promoted back in 2004. By the way, I have removed the popular culture section as it had no relevance or citations. In terms of getting it downgraded, that is the job of the Wikipedia:Featured article review (WP:FAR) process. It is strongly suggested that you bring up complaints on the talkpage first (which I see you have done). If no-one replies within two weeks or it has not been improved then open up an FAR. I would be happy to start working on finding citations if you like. It is better to try and improve it rather than open up a lengthy FAR. Woody (talk) 17:45, 12 May 2008 (UTC)
Thanks Woody! Yes, I'd certainly like to add citations to the article, as I have a lot of books on the subject. Thanks for the help. Skinny87 (talk) 17:54, 12 May 2008 (UTC)
Well the other beat me to mentioning it, but yes, this is one of maybe twenty or so FAs that we have that have yet to be either updated to comply with the current FA standards or demoted to ordinary article status. Be patient, we are getting there, and so are the FARC people, its just a matter of who gets there first. TomStar81 (Talk) 18:08, 12 May 2008 (UTC)
Thanks again. I apologize if I came off a tad argumentative, having re-read my initial post. I certainly didn't mean to. Skinny87 (talk) 19:00, 12 May 2008 (UTC)
Forthright, I thought, but not argumentative :) --ROGER DAVIES talk 04:12, 13 May 2008 (UTC)

A-Class review for Kaunas Fortress now open

The A-Class review for Kaunas Fortress is now open; all editors are invited to participate, and any input there would be appreciated! Thanks! Kirill (prof) 12:28, 13 May 2008 (UTC)

Peer review for 13th Airborne Division (United States) now open

The peer review for 13th Airborne Division (United States) is now open; all editors are invited to participate, and any input there would be appreciated! Thanks! Kirill (prof) 00:48, 14 May 2008 (UTC)

Most visited articles

User:FayssalF did a great listing of the most visited articles in the project for Feb 08, archived somewhere in archive 78. (WW2, WW1, and Che Guevara were I think the top three). Might I suggest that we examine the logs over a period of a few months, come up with a listing of the 10 most consistently visited articles, and think about ways to improve them as a priority? Comments welcome... Buckshot06 (talk) 10:16, 20 April 2008 (UTC)

Funnily enough the coordinators have discussed this here and here. But we got bogged down on the detail. For what it's worth, I think focusing on the top ten would be an excellent idea. --ROGER DAVIES talk 10:23, 20 April 2008 (UTC)
It is a good idea to develop the technology, but it's another question whether we should limit it to the top 10 articles. An overview about the hits for each article would also give us a clue how much percent of our total access we do improve and where to establish a limit. Wandalstouring (talk)
Hmm. Wouldn't fixing up the most-visited articles be like reinforcing the parts of the returned bombers that are all shot up to pieces, not thinking about the fact that you never get to see the bombers that are shot up in the more vital parts? Instead, I nominate we all help develop, say, Carter Hall (Millwood, Virginia). Thanks in advance for your help. :) doncram (talk) 19:08, 20 April 2008 (UTC)
It's about the focus of the project and the image of Wikipedia - if we're here to improve our own specific concerns, then no worries; but if we improve the quality of the top 10 articles in the most active project (correct me if I'm wrong), then we will eventually improve the quality of new editors attracted here and promote our own image in the process. I think focusing on the top 10 is a good initial goal, to fix the worst problems in the most visited pages (the Vietnam War article didn't mention, for example, that there were supposed to be elections in VN in 54!, before I just fixed it) and then we can work on less critical problems after that. Buckshot06 (talk) 21:47, 20 April 2008 (UTC)
That's a very good initial step. Something more ambitious can easily be set up if it proves a success. --ROGER DAVIES talk 22:23, 20 April 2008 (UTC)
My first reaction is we needed a focused article about Che Guevara driving a Tiger tank through a British trench. Silliness aside, what are the skills needed for the improvements? I just realized that unless someone else has done it, there is no wikilink from the Che Guevara article to the very detailed account, from declassified CIA documents, of his capture and execution in Bolivia.
To take the Vietnam example, far too many Americans, when the war broke out, had no idea that it was a continuation of things in which the U.S. had been involved, be it White Star in Laos or going back to the embargoes in 1941 based on Japanese expansion into Indochina. Of course, it's even harder to explain it to people that consider 1964 to be ancient history.
Since defining the problem is the first step, I'd think that a combination of finding the most-read articles, and then looking for missing topics (e.g., Vietnam 1954-56) would be a start. Some articles might be OK on content but need flow and copy edit. In other words, can we matrix the "areas improvement are needed" with the "most frequently hit" articles and set specific priorities?Howard C. Berkowitz (talk) 22:40, 20 April 2008 (UTC)
OK, since everybody seems to think the top 10 is a good start, could I ask our coordinators and/or people with the hitcount counting skills to do a survey from, say, 1 Jan 06 to 31 Mar 08 to determine what were the average top 10 (assuming this is possible)? Buckshot06 (talk) 23:14, 20 April 2008 (UTC)
WikiProject Fishing, which is very small project compared to this one, is building a maintenance list, including traffic counts, for all its articles . --Geronimo20 (talk) 23:12, 20 April 2008 (UTC)

<--What we really need is a focused article on how Che driving a Tiger through a trench caused global warming. :D It would guarantee WP would never need to worry about paying for capacity again. =] Trekphiler (talk) 00:13, 21 April 2008 (UTC)

(od) The data is currently only available for February 2008. The top ten then were:

rank Article # Hits
37 World War II 674737
67 World War I 515533
123 Che Guevara 387585
157 Vietnam War 338267
174 American Civil War 324616
243 Atomic bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki 284549
332 Napoleon I of France 241671
370 Julius Caesar 230835
414 Alexander the Great 220542
432 Cold War 215352
Once the appropriate data is available we could easily do this. --ROGER DAVIES talk 12:11, 22 April 2008 (UTC)
Just registering my support for the top 10 idea, would be great if we could get em all up to FA. Ryan4314 (talk) 19:01, 22 April 2008 (UTC)
As per the suggestion by Blnguyen above on the Vietnam War, interested editors thus might consider watchlisting WW1 and WW2 to get some further eyes on the matter and quickly resolve any major distortions which might arise. Buckshot06 (talk) 22:01, 22 April 2008 (UTC)

Moving on

(od) Perhaps the way forward is a Top-Ten task force, specifically to deal with this. The key idea would be to have no more than ten articles in its remit. The list above could initially form the core ten, with the core list being as new data comes available and as articles hit the desired quality targets. This would be quite separate to any larger core article improvement scheme. Thoughts? --ROGER DAVIES talk 22:38, 22 April 2008 (UTC)

I think this is a great idea. The National Militaries taskforce was initially, in my mind at least, intended as this kind of tightly focused working group, but rather lost its way. Maybe it could be reconfigured to serve the purpose, or at least serve as an initial place further discussion could be located. Buckshot06 (talk) 23:17, 22 April 2008 (UTC)
Kirill tells me that it's technically tricky to re-purpose/re-name a task force and, on further reflection, I'm reluctant to see another task force (we alreeady have nearly fifty, many of which are moribund) until the topic has demonstrated staying power. As an alternative (and I'm brainstorming here), why don't we set up a "Top Ten Team"? It seems to me that this provides a focal point for discussion (and more importantly action). The team could have its own page here, an entry in the navigation box, and a list of members. Then, if it works, after a couple of months say, we could "promote" it to a task force, if there's consensus for that at the time. The same principle could be applied to another project I've been asked about - getting Nelson to FAC for the 250th anniversary of his birth (29 September 1758). --ROGER DAVIES talk 00:35, 23 April 2008 (UTC)
Thinking slightly more generally, might it be worthwhile to prepare infrastructure for having an arbitrary number of groups of editors working on an arbitrary number of individual articles or small groups of (not-necessarily-common-topic) articles? This would be, to use our jargon, a department rather than a task force (e.g. an "Article team" department). Kirill 02:20, 23 April 2008 (UTC)
That's exactly what I was looking for. A focused working group, (maybe called Priority Articles Department Kirill), that looks at an issue, finishes with it, and is either folded up or retasked to look at another issue. Effectively, whatever it was called, it would have its own area and be very much like our existing TFs and departments. (Meanwhile, can we convert some of our expiring task forces to simply, maybe, 'resource pages'?) Buckshot06 (talk) 04:33, 23 April 2008 (UTC)
Yes, that sounds like a good idea, under whatever name (compare WP:FAT). As far as retiring task forces goes, I don't really see any benefit to doing so at this point; and there are some reasons why even inactive task forces are better than no task forces at all. Kirill 04:14, 24 April 2008 (UTC)
On the comment about taskforces: bad idea. Even defunct taskforces serve two purposes: they allow for categorizing articles; and they will be around if someone DOES want to join one of them. It's hard to restart a taskforce noone knows even existed. And this FA group thing sounds pretty good, if we have people with the time and will.Cromdog (talk) 16:04, 24 April 2008 (UTC)
Can this tool be used to see the number of hits with in a task force i.e. top ten WW2 articles? Ryan4314 (talk) 12:39, 29 April 2008 (UTC)

I think this would be a fantastic idea. By having a dedicated group of people working on our most prominant articles, not only would we be enhancing Wikipedia in the most visible way we can, but I believe this would also lead to the adoption of (fairly) standard article structures. The latter would not only make reader transition from article-to-article far easier, but would likely have a trickle-down effect that would benefit all our articles. Oberiko (talk) 17:15, 29 April 2008 (UTC)

What does everyone think about calling it the Action Department? If we can settle on a name, I can set the basics up. --ROGER DAVIES talk 03:57, 30 April 2008 (UTC)

Um, Action Department isn't very clear about what it means and is a little too close to Action Service for my liking. It's about articles of priority isn't it - what about Priority Articles Department? Buckshot06 (talk) 07:13, 30 April 2008 (UTC)
Yes, "action department" seems a bit overly cryptic. I'd be fine with Buckshot's suggested "priority articles department" (Wikipedia:WikiProject Military history/Priority articles happens to be unoccupied by anything else, so that works out neatly); any extra bells and whistles can be added on the page itself, but I think it's beneficial to keep the page name as simple and obvious as possible, for the benefit of first-time visitors/readers. Kirill (prof) 00:54, 1 May 2008 (UTC)
Hmmm. I'd personally prefer something snappier a bit more memorable and a bit less staid title-wise. Priority action dept? Article intervention dept? We must be able to do better :))) --ROGER DAVIES talk 11:47, 3 May 2008 (UTC)
Priority response department? Critical articles department? I'm not sure how memorable we can get without seeming overly self-important. Kirill (prof) 17:07, 3 May 2008 (UTC)
In my view the main problem with these articles is that they are so large. Most of our FAs are on topics which are relatively limited in scope. WWI is a vast topic with huge amounts of historiography to interpret (which is still the most difficult thing for Wikipedia to do). Bringing it to FA quality would be a massive task and probably involve a dozens subsidiary articles as well. The Land (talk) 10:08, 3 May 2008 (UTC)
True. But that's part of the fun, n'est-ce pas? --ROGER DAVIES talk 11:47, 3 May 2008 (UTC)
No doubt it would be large, that's why we'd likely need the task force to begin with. Oberiko (talk) 14:29, 3 May 2008 (UTC)

A bit of fun - and a barnstar to win

Let's see if we can come up with a really good name for the proposed new department, see #Moving on above. It's basically a department to house teams for special projects: Top Ten article improvement; Nelson's birthday etc. A name similar to the simple and self-explanatory Logistics dept would be good. The person coming up with the best name gets the What a Brilliant Idea barnstar. Ideas so far include:

  • Priority action department?
  • Priority articles department
  • Article intervention department?
  • Priority response department?
  • Critical articles department?

--ROGER DAVIES talk 08:44, 6 May 2008 (UTC)

In a nutshell, what would the purpose of the group/department be? That should be stated in this section if people are to give any consideration for an alternative name. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 129.108.97.167 (talk • contribs) 09:15, 6 May 2008
Clarified :) --ROGER DAVIES talk 09:20, 6 May 2008 (UTC)

I have two suggestions for a name:

  • "Strategic Development Initiative Department": Aside from the initials (SDI) and the catch phrase, it would be an honest reflection of the specialized nature of the department: improving identified articles through development and standardization. Broken down, strategy is defined as "a long term plan of action designed to achieve a particular goal" and "are used to make the problem easier to understand and solve", devlopment is defined as "The application of new ideas to practical problems", and initiative is defined as "to start an action, including coming up with a proposal and giving or helping without first being requested to do so"; taken togather, that seems to sum up the ideaology of the new department. Above all that, the nickname "star wars" can be applied because this will strike many editers here as a science fiction plan :) TomStar81 (Talk) 18:49, 9 May 2008 (UTC)
  • "Special Article Development Department" (SADD) This one borrows a little from the above, but is less militaristic. The Special Articles would be the ones we single out for attention, although it lacks the established puhzaz of the SDI suggestion.

Anyway, those are my two suggestions. TomStar81 (Talk) 18:49, 9 May 2008 (UTC)

Just became we're Milhist does not mean we have to follow the Department of Defense and wrap everything in impenetrable acronyms. I'd prefer the first two of the 'priority' suggestions listed by Roger, to be honest: 'intervention' sounds like we're trying to arbitrate content disputes, and the others just don't sound right (as Kirill says, we begin to sound self-important). Buckshot06 (talk) 09:47, 13 May 2008 (UTC)
I've just realised it might not always be about articles; categories, portals, even knotty content disputes or T&A drives might eventually be looked at by this department at one time or another. How about, then, what Roger described it as - 'Special projects department' - has enough snazz I think. Buckshot06 (talk) 10:03, 13 May 2008 (UTC)
I'm very happy with that. It can cover a multitude of activities and has some pizzaz. --ROGER DAVIES talk 10:09, 13 May 2008 (UTC)

Special projects department?. Supports or opposes below please ... --ROGER DAVIES talk 10:09, 13 May 2008 (UTC)

That seems unanimous enough :) Duly set up. Wikipedia:WikiProject Military history/Special projects with a shortcut of WP:MHSP. --ROGER DAVIES talk 16:29, 14 May 2008 (UTC)

First steps

Could I request as a first step the coordinators designate the most suitable place/page for a 'super-peer-review' of WW1, WW2, and Che Guevara? Would the WP:MHSP talk page be best, or elsewhere? Defining a structure that would pass professional historians' reviews is also important; if we can get the structure right and keep the crufters, vandals etc out we'll have won half the battle already. Buckshot06(prof) 02:49, 15 May 2008 (UTC)

I guess WT:MHSP would be best as a starter. If the reviews get too chunky there, they can always be moved to satellite sub-pages (ie WT:MHSP/WWI, WT:MHSP/WWII, WT:MHSP/Che Guevara etc. --ROGER DAVIES talk 02:57, 15 May 2008 (UTC)
OK, would the coordinators like to put out a general announcement of a 'super-peer-review' of WW2 on this page, and individually to any editors who they feel might have particularly helpful contributions to add? I mean, I could, but I'm not the coordinators. Buckshot06(prof) 04:06, 15 May 2008 (UTC)
I'd be very grateful if you would. You're more than up to the job and you've got the wind in your sails on this one :) --ROGER DAVIES talk 04:56, 15 May 2008 (UTC)
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